2026-05 - W1

AddyOsmani.com - Cognitive Surrender

Another link for the cognitive surrender, but now from a renowned personality.

Cognitive offloading is a superpower. Cognitive surrender is the failure mode of using it without noticing the line between them. The job, increasingly, is to stay calibrated about which side of that line you’re standing on at any given moment.

If your code is shipping and your understanding of the system is shrinking, you’re paying with cognitive debt. If your code is shipping and your understanding of the system is growing, you’re doing the actual job, just faster than before.

The tools are the same in both cases. The posture is what differs. That’s the part still entirely yours.

Harness engineering beyond skills: Using sensors to keep your coding agent in check - YouTube

Video of the author of the really good article: Harness engineering for coding agent users.

Must read/watch to have a better mental model of the word “harness” in the AI world.