Sr. Content Developer at Microsoft, working remotely in PA, TechBash conference organizer, former Microsoft MVP, Husband, Dad and Geek.
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The virtuous loop of Open Agentic Development

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With today’s open-sourcing of Warp, our goal is to create a new way of building, where humans and agents collaborate in the open to ship better software, more quickly. We are creating a flywheel where a user’s idea becomes a real improvement to Warp—prototyped with an agent, refined and approved with our team, built and shipped by our agentic infrastructure, Oz, and verified together—so that each contribution makes the product better and brings more users into the fold. The more people that par...

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alvinashcraft
just a second ago
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Pennsylvania, USA
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Sensitive data as Venn diagram

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In Healthcare, Normal data is all data that is linked to an identified Patient and not specifically sensitive. Any data that is sensitive would be Restricted. "Normal" refers to the normal average curve, thus the majority of data. Sensitive data can be categorized into sensitivity topics, and some data may fall into multiple sensitive categories, as illustrated in the Venn diagram below.

Sensitive topics are generally potentially stigmatizing information, for which exposure would present high risk of harm to an individual's reputation and sense of privacy. 

In a data tagging architecture, sensitivity topics are indicated as a "sensitivity" code in the FHIR Resource.meta.security tag of FHIR resources, and can be used for access control decisions in a Privacy Consent driven access control model.

Normal data is often not tagged as Normal, but rather is just the absence of any sensitive tag. This is recognizing that the vast majority of medical data are Normal (algorithmically average). The presence of any sensitive tag would make the data Restricted, indicated as R restricted Confidentiality code.
The data are tagged with the kind of sensitivity purely due to their data content, and not due to any other factors such as the Patient consent status. The labeling does not imply that there is any particular access control policy in place, but rather that the data is sensitive and may require special handling. 

The access control policies would be defined separately and could use the presence of these sensitivity tag to make decisions about who can access the data and under what circumstances. 

For example, when a given patient indicates that broad treatment use of their data is not restricted, but their Sexual Health sensitive data must not be shared beyond their PCP and never with non-Treatment purpose of Use. So, in this case, note that the other sensitive tags beyond Sexual Health have no effect on accessibility. Note that this Consent policy just needs to see the Sexual Health tags, it does not care about Normal vs Restricted. 

Resources:
  • - An Implementation Guide with various ValueSet(s) that could be used by a Security Labeling Service (SLS) to tag data according to specific sensitivity. - SLS ValueSets
  • - A Reference Implementation (OpenSource) of a Security Labeling Service (SLS) that I created using Vibe coding with AI - SLS RI GitHub Repository
  • - An Implementation Guide defining that API, and specifically a Profile on ValueSet to identify sensitivity type and the codes for that type. -- SLS RI Implementation Guide
  • - Example Patient Data SHIFT Demo Scenarios IG
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alvinashcraft
17 seconds ago
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Pennsylvania, USA
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A New Theme for Short-Form Blogging on WordPress.com

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At WordPress.com, we believe short thoughts deserve a real home. Today we’re introducing a new theme built for quick posts, replies, and reblogs: the kind of writing that lives somewhere between a tweet and a blog post, on a site that’s entirely yours.

If you’ve been thinking about starting your own small, private social network with friends or family, or you want a space to post thoughts freely, or to import your historical posts from Twitter, Mastodon, or Bluesky without handing your words over to someone else’s platform, this one’s for you.

Let’s take a look — or sign up now at wordpress.com/social.

Write now, not later

Click the “Compose” button, type your thoughts, watch the 500-character counter, and tap Post. No blank canvas, no formatting toolbar to navigate first. Just a simple prompt, What’s happening?, and a place to answer it.

A profile page that feels familiar

Your profile collects everything in one place: your avatar, bio, and the counts your readers will look for posts, following, followers. Tabs for Posts, Replies, Media, and Likes let visitors browse the way they already know how. A sidebar keeps Home, Explore, and your profile one click away.

Reblogs that actually work

This is the feature we’re most excited about. Click the reblog icon on any post and it flows into your own feed, credited to the original author, automatically. No screenshots, no copy-paste, no lost attribution.

Every post is a real post

Here’s what makes this different from a social app: every quick thought and every reblog is a real WordPress.com post on a site you own, and every reply is saved as a comment. You get the speed and feel of a social feed, with the permanence and portability of a blog. Export it, back it up, migrate it to another host. It’s yours.

Built for the open web

The theme is fully mobile-responsive, so posting from your phone feels just as natural as from your desktop. Tap Compose from wherever the thought hits you.

And because every blog on WordPress.com comes with RSS out of the box, your readers can follow along in whatever feed reader they already use. No algorithm, no app required, just a URL they can subscribe to and content that shows up when you publish it.

Give it a try

Head to wordpress.com/social to sign up for a new blog and get started.

We’d love to hear what you think.





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alvinashcraft
2 hours ago
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Pennsylvania, USA
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Is Your Auth Ready for AI? Why Identity Is the First Thing Developers Need to Fix

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Learn why identity infrastructure is the primary bottleneck for scaling AI agents and how to move toward a secure, AI-ready auth model.

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alvinashcraft
2 hours ago
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Pennsylvania, USA
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Amazon’s color screen Kindles are finally getting a system-wide dark mode

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A person holds an Amazon Kindle Colorsoft with dark mode turned on.
Dark mode will soon be available for all parts of the Kindle Colorsoft’s UI. | Image: Amazon

Most modern Kindle devices with a black and white E Ink screen offer an alternate inverted dark mode with white text against a black background across their entire user interface. Today Amazon has announced the same feature is coming to the Kindle Colorsoft and Kindle Scribe Colorsoft that instead feature color E Ink screens, which could previously only invert the pages of ebooks. The software update introducing the system-wide dark mode to Colorsoft devices "will be rolling out to readers worldwide" in the coming weeks, and available for download through Amazon's website.

While dark mode will be available system-wide for every section of t …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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alvinashcraft
2 hours ago
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Pennsylvania, USA
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Our 2026 Direction: AI and Classic Workflows in JetBrains IDEs

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Two valid ways of writing code. One place to own it.

Quick version for AI-news-tired readers:

There are two ways developers create code now:

  1. The classic way: By typing, refactoring, debugging, and building up intent line by line.
  2. The new way: Through collaborating with AI – sometimes via autocomplete and other times by using an agent that can draft whole chunks of work.

We don’t think one is better than the other.

Our goal is to ensure both workflows can coexist inside JetBrains IDEs without hindering each other. In practice, this means that:

  • If you want to write code yourself, the IDE should be focused on code writing, and AI shouldn’t compromise the core coding experience.
  • If you want to generate code with AI (or delegate tasks to agents), the IDE should make that feel natural and powerful, both in terms of UX and functionality.

Either way, one thing doesn’t change: A human is responsible for the code that ships. And the best place to read, understand, and own that code is still the IDE.


What “AI in the IDE” means without the snake oil or hype

We’re not limiting this to one “official” workflow. The market is moving too fast for that – and developers are too diverse for a one-size-fits-all approach.

So when we say “AI in JetBrains IDEs”, we mean agentic added value: UX and features that become available as and when useful:

  • In the AI Chat tool window, as a chat-first workflow.
  • in the IDE terminal, where many developers already work with CLI tools.
  • In the new opt-in modes created for agentic systems, where you can run an agent and leave it to work for hours.

Think of it as follows: One IDE, with multiple AI-powered ways to get work done – picked by the user, shaped by the team, and constrained by real development expectations.


The AI strategy: Avoid vendor lock‑in and keep workflows compatible

If there’s one thing we’re confident about, it’s this: The “best” model, provider, or agent today won’t be the best forever – or perhaps even next month.

That’s why we’re deliberately building toward an IDE experience that does not depend on a single vendor’s roadmap.

Practically, that means our AI chat experience supports multiple ways to connect – depending on what’s allowed by providers’ terms, and what users actually want:

  • JetBrains AI-managed setup (with JetBrains AI subscription).
  • BYOK: Bring your own API key.
  • OAuth sign-in for supported provider accounts (where the provider supports it).
  • ACP agents: Connect external coding agents through a standard protocol.

One honest footnote: OAuth isn’t always available. If an agent provider doesn’t offer OAuth (or doesn’t offer it in a way an IDE can use), we can’t invent it.


Agent Client Protocol (ACP): “Bring your own agent”

ACP lets you connect external coding agents to JetBrains IDEs through a standard interface, so the IDE doesn’t need a bespoke integration for every agent. Agents can be installed from a curated registry (or configured manually), and the installed agents appear inside the AI chat. 

A practical example of one that people have been asking for is the Cursor agent. Cursor is already available as an AI agent inside JetBrains IDEs through ACP – you can select it from the agent picker and use its agentic workflow inside your JetBrains IDE. 

This is the shape we want:

  • You choose the agent that fits your workflow or team.
  • You keep working in the IDE you already rely on.
  • Classic IDE workflows don’t get shoved aside for “agent mode”.

“Professional coding with AI” means more responsibility

We’re not anti-AI. We’re anti-confusion.

There’s a kind of coding that’s optimized for disposable output – and it’s totally valid in the right context. But JetBrains IDEs are built for code that isn’t disposable, but rather for code that is intended for long-term use.

So here’s the principle we design for: Generated code should be treated like real code. That means it should be possible to:

  • Read it
  • Review it
  • Change it
  • Revert it when it’s wrong
  • Understand its impact on the codebase

In practice, our baseline expectation is boring (in the best possible sense):

  • Changes should be visible
  • Changes should be reversible
  • Your project isn’t left in a broken state (“no red code” is a pretty good starting point)

And yes, agents can edit many files. That can be a superpower – but only if you can fully inspect, understand, and correct the outcome. That’s where the IDE matters: It gives you visibility and control over the code produced by humans or AI.


AI on your terms: our product commitments

1. AI and classic modes live side by side 

Typing-first workflows and AI-first workflows are both valid. We’re not building for developer-replacement narratives, and we’re not building an IDE that nudges you into a single “approved” way of working. We respect both approaches. 

2. AI agents must respect the core IDE promise

Every push toward agents must keep the IDE’s core promise intact: deep code intelligence, safe refactoring, debugging, navigation, inspections, reviews – the stuff professional development is made of.

3. Zero vendor lock-in

Multiple activation pathways (subscription, BYOK, OAuth, where possible, and ACP agents) are not a “nice to have.” We are committed to ensuring your workflow is never tied to a single vendor.

4. Long-term utility over hype

If people keep using these workflows weeks later (real retention, real projects), that’s the signal. A lot of AI-driven workflows today are just hype (I’m talking about you, Ralph-loop). 

5. Prioritizing candid community feedback

We value the honesty of Reddit users, Marketplace reviewers, and community members who don’t owe us politeness. Those are exactly the people we want judging our progress.


AI will create a lot of code. That’s not a prediction anymore – it's the reality in April 2026.

But someone still has to be responsible for that code. Someone still has to read it before it merges. And right now, agents can help you move fast – but they can’t carry the risk for you.

So our commitment is straightforward:

We’ll keep building AI workflows that speed up creation – and we’ll keep strengthening the IDE as the best place to review, understand, and own what gets shipped.

You decide how much AI you want. We’ll make sure both paths – AI-assisted and classic – work great together, but you can stay on the path you prefer.

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alvinashcraft
2 hours ago
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