Agentic engineering and vibe coding.

Highlights

1A self-custody simulator, built by talking to an agent

Practise before it's real. Some people own a hardware wallet but are still too scared to move their bitcoin onto it. Andy built an interactive simulator so they can practise first, guided by a mentor character, with no real money at stake. He built it in Bolt: type (or say) what you want, click any element to change it, roll back from the history if you don't like the result, and publish with one button.

Feedback from the call. Make one rule impossible to miss: seed words go into the hardware wallet only, never into a website or software wallet, and explain why (it stops being cold storage). And add translations: Chinese-speaking Bitcoiners asked for it first. Missions run in order for now; letting people skip ahead and link back to earlier steps was another suggestion.

2The mempool as a fish tank, a beehive and a T-shirt factory

One prompt, one HTML file. A builder asked several AI models for a live Bitcoin transaction visualizer. One answer was a single HTML file that pulled live data from the mempool.space API and just worked. From there he kept adding ideas with a cheap model in OpenCode, committed to GitHub and let Vercel deploy each change.

“Now we need to unlearn the things we think we cannot do. Come up with an idea, speak to the laptop, and it becomes real.”

Said on the call

3From finding issues to running a team of agents

An issue finder for Bitcoin open source. One builder scans about 50 Bitcoin repositories, analyses their open issues and good first issues, matches them to your skills from your GitHub account, and sends daily updates to Telegram. PayJoin was the first project he dug into.

One agent to talk to, many to do the work. Another builder is making his own Mac and iPhone app around an orchestrator. You speak to it, and it hands the task to the right agent and model.

Key takeaways

1. Speak, don't type. Rambling for two minutes into the microphone gives the agent more context than a short typed prompt, and it's faster. Superwhisper and Omarchy's dictation were both recommended.

2. Small and cheap goes a long way. A single HTML file and a free API made a fun, useful Bitcoin tool. Cheap models were good enough for most of the work, with a stronger model only when the agent got stuck. One organiser rebuilt a business website with bookings, SMS checks and newsletters in two days, then set up its ads the same way.

3. Payments are easy to hand to an agent. A Bitcoin tip button now sits on the workshop page, made with BTCPay Server on an Umbrel. Alby Hub was even quicker to wire up: give the agent the connection details and it gets done.

Resources shared

Tools

• Bolt: the vibe coding app Andy used for the simulator: chat with the agent, click an element to change it, roll back from history, publish in one click
• OpenCode: open-source coding agent for the terminal, paired with a cheap DeepSeek model to build the visualizers
• Hermes Agent, Nous Research: open-source agent used as a personal workspace and one of the harnesses an orchestrator can hand work to
• DeepSeek: low-cost models (V4 Flash) that were "cheap, reliable and enough" for small web projects
• Buzz, Block: lets agents in different harnesses talk to each other; ideas from it went into the orchestrator app
• Herdr: a tmux-style terminal for agents: an orchestrator hands tasks to a builder pane and a reviewer pane (guide)
• Darkbloom: rent out a Mac's spare compute to run open models for OpenRouter users and get paid
• OpenRouter: one API for many AI models, where Darkbloom machines show up as a provider
• Superwhisper: voice-to-text on your computer, recommended for talking to agents instead of typing
• Suno: AI music, used for the soundtrack of the mempool visualizers
• Vercel: commit to GitHub and the site deploys itself, so a refresh shows the agent's change
• mempool.space API: the free data source behind the live transaction visualizers
• BitListen: listen to Bitcoin transactions as bubbles and sounds; one of the inspirations for the visualizers
• Omarchy: a keyboard-driven Linux setup several builders are trying; it comes with Herdr and voice dictation
• Umbrel: home server that runs BTCPay Server and more; it travels with the host
• Start9: home server; one builder turned an old one into the always-on box for nightly agent jobs
• Cloudflare Tunnel: reach a home server from your phone without opening ports
• Jellyfin: open-source media server; the orchestrator can read its subtitles and "watch" with you
• Alby Hub: self-custodial lightning node; the quickest one to hand to an agent for payments
• BTCPay Server: used for the tip button on the workshop page (lightning and on-chain); a bit more setup than Alby Hub
• AeroSpace: open-source tiling window manager for macOS
• Komorebi: tiling window manager for Windows
• Raycast: keyboard launcher for macOS

Code Orange

• Agentic Engineering workshop: every 3rd Wednesday, 12:00 UTC on Discord
• Bitcoin Reading Club: the next session, Wednesday 28 October

Ideas for future sessions: a TollGate session (routers that sell Wi-Fi, and even AI access, for ecash and lightning), a hands-on Omarchy workshop, and a screen-shared demo of the orchestrator app and Herdr. Feedback for the simulator: warn clearly never to type seed words into a website or software wallet, and add translations (Chinese was asked for first).

Browse every resource from every session →