Custom Rubrics for Agentic Search
July 13, 2026Platform search fails niche users because it optimizes for the majority. Custom rubrics—private criteria applied by AI—let you find what you actually want by reading the signals businesses can't fake.
An AI agent is software that uses an AI model, tools, and feedback to pursue a goal through repeated steps. It gathers context, chooses an action, checks the result, and continues until it finishes or needs human input.
These essays ask how agents change software, work, and search—and what remains valuable as model capabilities improve. Start with Apps After Agents for the core thesis: models are replaceable, while the judgment that accumulates around them is the durable substrate.
Platform search fails niche users because it optimizes for the majority. Custom rubrics—private criteria applied by AI—let you find what you actually want by reading the signals businesses can't fake.
Every generation of programmers believed their ground was solid. Assembly, C, manual memory management — each felt essential until the boundary moved. Now AI is moving it again.
Models are commodity. Substrate is differentiation. The question isn't how smart your agents are — it's where the crystallized judgment lives.
LLM prompts are like flying cameras through latent space, capturing snapshots of frozen intelligence.
Building a YouTube summarizer with ElectricSQL, exploring lazy syncing and real-time progress updates.
LLMs finally enable automated testing for documentation by asking questions and asserting on responses.