The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
Changelog Media
Automation at the speed of Swamp (Friends)
2 hour 26 minutes Posted May 13, 2026 at 9:00 pm.
Welcome to The Changelog
Sponsor: Coder.com
Reconnecting with Adam Jacob
AI is changing what's possible in software
Abstration layers are increasing
How do I know if I did a good job today?
What happens when key system contraints change dramatically?
From a team of 18 to a team of 5 with AI
The loop from implementation planning to user acceptance testing
Why did you bring back UAT?
Implementation Plan Walkthrough
Writing specs vs writing design docs
Swamp.club!
What Swamp does
Would you call Swamp an AI harness?
Who is Swamp for?
How would Swamp build automation for Proxmox?
What capabilites for Swamp are you exploring next?
Sponsor: Tailscale
Why did you name it Swamp?
How do you level up in Swamp?
How do I get started with Swamp?
Adam tries Swamp live
What tools like Swamp mean for the future of automation
Are there any limitations to what Swamp can automate?
Nerding out on what these tools mean for the future of software
Why Adam Jacob is excited about the future with Swamp
Is Swamp anything like OpenClaw?
What are some unusual things you can ask Swamp to do?
Using Swamp to deploy software to different cloud platforms
How do you convince people that Swamp is production ready?
Sponsor: RWX
What part of the software lifecycle will be compressed/collapsed by Swamp?
Things are feeling pretty uncomfortable
Adam Jacob's advice for navigating the future of software engineering
Software development isn't dead. It's just changing very fast.
Book recommendations!!
Swamp IS NOT open to contributions
How will agentic development impact team sizes?
Speculation on the future of the software industry
Building for people outside of Silicon Valley
Everything is being reinvented. Opportunities are out there.
We're out
Closing thoughts and stuff
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2:26:00
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Show notes
This week I'm talking with Adam Jacob, founder of System Initiative and creator of Swamp, about what happens when AI agents change the entire shape of software development. We discuss how he went from an 18-person team down to five and shipped Swamp 900 times in four weeks, why he brought User Acceptance Testing (UAT) testing back from the 90s, why software architecture (and domain-driven design) suddenly matters more than knowing how to write code, the live demo where I pointed Swamp at my Proxmox box and watched it write its own automation (blew my mind!!), and why he'll never accept a pull request to Swamp, ever.