Working with AI models in 2026 is its own craft. Context windows, conversation histories that outlive their usefulness, agent loops that half-remember, models that update and change what they're good at — the mechanics are unstable and the literature is mostly marketing copy.
The essays here are notes from the loop: what a new model actually changed, what stays in the context and what gets thrown away, how agents go from toy to tool. The goal isn't to prescribe a workflow — it's to show what's happening when you watch closely.
No roundups. No "top 10 AI tools." Just what broke, what worked, and why.