The ROI Math on Reverse-Engineering Your Smart Home Just Flipped
Simon Willison observes that coding agents have lowered the cost of reverse-engineering and automating undocumented home devices enough to change the underlying ROI calculation.
What it is
A short opinion post by Simon Willison built on anecdotes of people using coding agents to reverse-engineer and automate home devices.
What it does
It argues that reverse-engineering undocumented, unstable device APIs was always technically possible, but rarely worth the effort given the risk that a vendor could break the integration at any time; coding agents cut the up-front labor cost enough that the same risky, unstable-API work now clears the bar for casual hobby projects.
Why it matters
It reframes what "agents write code faster" actually changes: not just professional throughput, but the threshold of projects that are worth starting at all, including ones deliberately built on brittle, undocumented foundations.
Dependabot version updates now default to a 3-day package cooldown
Dependabot now waits at least three days after a new release appears on its registry before opening a version-update pull request, on by default with no configuration.
A Claude Code Team Fireside Chat, Full Transcript and Video
Simon Willison published video and an annotated transcript of a fireside chat with Anthropic's Cat Wu and Thariq Shihipar covering Claude Code security, evals, and tool design.
Claude Fable 5 Goes Permanent for Max and Team Plans on July 20
Anthropic will make Claude Fable 5 a permanent part of Max and Team Premium plans starting July 20, 2026, at 50% of usage limits, with Pro and Team Standard users getting a one-time $100 credit.