Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats

Wes and Scott talk with Armin Ronacher and Mario Zechner about PI, a minimalist agent harness powering tools like OpenClaw. They unpack why Bash is “all you need,” the risks of agents, workflow adaptability, and where AI coding agents are actually headed.

Show Notes

00:00 Welcome to Syntax!

03:28 What is Pi, and why does it matter?

OpenClaw

05:54 What do we actually mean by “agents”?

11:04 Prompt injection: how LLMs get tricked

14:19 Is Claude Cowork actually secure?

22:01 How Armin and Mario use agents day to day

26:37 Brought to you by Sentry.io

27:25 Memory and search: teaching agents to remember

33:04 Do coding agents even need memory?

34:36 “Bash is all you need”

37:21 Adding power: how agents learn new tricks

47:02 Tools and models Armin and Mario are using right now

54:15 Sick picks + shameless plugs

Sick Picks

Mario: Cards for Ukraine

Armin: Pro-Ject Audio Turntable

Shameless Plugs

Armin:

Thorsten Ball Newsletter

Simon Willison

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Scott and Wes run through their wishlist for the web platform, digging into the UI primitives, DOM APIs, and browser features they wish existed (or didn’t suck). From better form controls and drag-and-drop to native reactivity, CSS ideas, and future-facing APIs, it’s a big-picture chat on what the web could be.

Show Notes

00:00 Welcome to Syntax!

Wes Tweet

00:39 Exploring What’s Missing from the Web Platform

02:26 Enhancing DOM Primitives for Better User Experience

03:59 Multi-select + Combobox.

Open-UI

04:49 Date Picker.

Thibault Denis Tweet

07:18 Tabs.

08:01 Image + File Upload.

09:08 Toggles.

10:23 Native Drag and Drop that doesn’t suck.

12:03 Syntax wishlist.

12:06 Type Annotations.

15:07 Pipe Operator.

16:33 APIs We Wish to See on the Web

18:31 Brought to you by Sentry.io

19:51 Identity.

21:33 getElementByText()

24:09 Native Reactive DOM. Templating in JavaScript.

24:48 Sync Protocol.

25:52 Virtualization that doesn’t suck.

27:40 Put, Patch, and Delete on forms.

Ollie Williams Tweet

SnorklTV Tweet

28:55 Text metrics: get bounding box of individual characters.

29:42 Lower Level Connections.

29:50 Bluetooth API.

30:47 Sockets.

31:29 NFC + RFID.

34:34 Things we want in CSS.

34:40 Specify transition speed.

35:24 CSS Strict Mode.

36:25 Safari moving to Chromium.

36:37 The Need for Diverse Browser Engines

37:48 AI Access.

44:49 Other APIs

46:59 Qwen TTS

48:07 Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs

Sick Picks

Scott: Monarch

Wes: Slonik Headlamp

Shameless Plugs

Scott: Syntax on YouTube

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Wes and Scott talk about building hyper-specific personal software with AI. They explore personal agents, home automation, JSON-as-a-database, and how LLMs unlock fast, custom apps that reduce friction and replace bloated SaaS.

Show Notes

00:00 Welcome to Syntax!

01:53 What is personal software (and why it matters)

04:49 Using AI agents to build hyper-specific apps for yourself

Clawdbot

ClawdHub

13:43 Supercharging your dev workflow with Tailscale

19:06 Privacy when working with LLMs

MLX-Audio

21:39 Brought to you by Sentry.io

22:21 Real-world personal app ideas

39:14 Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs

Sick Picks

Scott: FTPManager

Wes: Roku Streaming Stick

Shameless Plugs

Syntax YouTube Channel

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Scott and Wes sit down with Kent C. Dodds to break down MCP, context engineering, and what it really takes to build effective AI-powered tools. They dig into practical examples, UI patterns, performance tradeoffs, and whether the future of the web lives in chat or the browser.

Show Notes

00:00 Welcome to Syntax!

00:44 Introduction to Kent C. Dodds

02:44 What is MCP?

03:28 Context Engineering in AI

04:49 Practical Examples of MCP

06:33 Challenges with Context Bloat

08:08 Brought to you by Sentry.io

09:37 Why not give AI API access directly?

12:28 How is an MCP different from Skills

14:58 MCP optimizations and efficiency levers

16:24 MCP UI and Its Importance

19:18 Where are we at today with MCP

24:06 What is the development flow for building MCP servers?

27:17 Building out an MCP UI.

29:29 Returning HTML, when to render.

36:17 Calling tools from your UI

37:25 What is Goose?

38:42 Are browsers cooked? Is everything via chat?

43:25 Remix3

47:21 Sick Picks & Shameless Plugs

Sick Picks

Kent: OneWheel

Shameless Plugs

Kent: http://EpicAI.pro,http://EpicWeb.dev,http://EpicReact.dev

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Wes and Scott talk about why mobile web apps often feel “janky” compared to native—and how to fix it. They cover input zooming, accidental horizontal scroll, pointer/user-select quirks, frame rate consistency, full-page refreshes, and more.

Show Notes

00:00 Welcome to Syntax!

01:11 Brought to you by Sentry.io

02:57 Zooming inputs

06:11 Horizontal scrolling

08:49 Proper use of pointer-events: none, and user-select: none

11:27 Allowing zoom on everything

16:37 Cleaning up the “jank”

19:48 Full page refresh

24:05 Slow loading times

29:50 Cumulative layout shift

32:47 Address bars and viewport units

Dynamic Viewport Units

35:34 Full-width scroll traps

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