Nicholas C. Zakas

I'm excited to share my first new book (or e-book) in over five years! Understanding JavaScript Promises explains not just how promises work but also how to use them in the real world. And the best part? It's free. Grab yours now. bit.ly/promises-ebook

My 2025 taxes are messed up because the IRS hasn’t yet processed my 2024 taxes. After navigating a phone tree for 10 minutes it says I’m being transferred to a representative…sorry, no one is available at this time. Try again later. No option to wait. No option to get a call back. This feels like a game I can’t win.

GitHub's Copilot pricing changes? Inevitable. Companies can't subsidize AI indefinitely. This will happen across the industry. I explored this in my first newsletter of 2026. newsletter.humanwhocodes.com/posts/expensiv…

If you maintain a high-velocity GitHub repo, it might be time to turn on merge queues: GitHub will automatically queue up batches of PRs to be merged once all CI checks pass on the combined changes. Learn more in this helpful post from @slicknet: humanwhocodes.com/blog/2026/04/i…

At the start of the year I predicted major changes to AI plans because they were burning so much money. Significant Copilot restrictions just dropped. I’m sure this won’t be the last we hear of such cutbacks in plans.

I noticed the LinkedIn strategy stopped working on Crosspost so I asked Copilot to investigate. It tried to post, evaluated the error that happened, then rewrote the code to use the new API. The future is so much fun.

In case you missed, my most recent blog post explains how GitHub merge queues can save you time: humanwhocodes.com/blog/2026/04/i…

Have you ever accidentally `git reset`? Quick tip to get back to where you were: git reset --mixed ORIG_HEAD

In case you missed it, my latest newsletter talks about the very real cost of burnout to your health and career along with some tips to avoid it. newsletter.humanwhocodes.com/posts/avoiding…

The top part of the PRD is close to what I use — objective, user stories, etc. I also have the agent ask questions to clarify intent (will incorporate your more aggressive approach now). Then I generate the tech spec from that, and that’s what the agent builds from. I tend to spend way more time reviewing and iterating on the tech spec than anything. Having the PRD separate lets me trash a tech spec if I have to and start over easily. Recently did three tech specs off of one PRD for incorporating three different payment providers for the same feature.

@mattpocockuk @slicknet I think the idea is that PRD is one discreet step, that informs the technical implementation plan which is the asset you are ultimately after. The model shouldn’t care about the PRD - only the spec. PRD’s are too open ended and Opus is way too creative. 😂

The "write-a-prd" skill from @mattpocockuk is an incredible planning experience. So good. You will have addressed every possible detail and edge case, and you get a nice issue in your repo. Then it's just "implement #" in Copilot CLI. skills.sh/mattpocock/ski…

I asked Gemini to redesign the Bredbox homepage. I'm pretty happy with the result. What do you think? bredbox.app

I'm getting scattered reports that yesterday's newsletter has ended up in people's spam folders. If you're a subscriber, please double-check your spam folder and mark as not spam. Thanks!

Burnout is a real problem for software engineers and can affect your health in addition to your career. In my latest newsletter, I share my story and some tips on how to avoid burnout: newsletter.humanwhocodes.com/posts/avoiding…

Merge queues are one of those sleeper GitHub features that can make a huge difference in your productivity. In my latest post, I explain what a merge queue is and how to use it: humanwhocodes.com/blog/2026/04/i…

@johnrudolphdrex @_Mikie_ @harvest For me it’s just me, and all I really need is time tracking so I can generate invoices and detailed time reports. That’s literally all I use Harvest for.

@slicknet @_Mikie_ @harvest I’ll reach out 🫡. We’re happy with all sizes. We use it ourselves and our agency is about 5 people right now.

I’ve been a happy paying customer of @harvest for six years. $137/year for a great time tracking tool. Now they’ve switched billing to a seat + usage (???) model that would effectively double my price for fewer features. This is how you lose customers.

@johnrudolphdrex @_Mikie_ @harvest Looks interesting. Just signed up for the waiting list. (email ends with humanwhocodes.com) I may be quite a bit smaller than your target customer but would be happy to give it a try.

@_Mikie_ @slicknet @harvest Oh baby. Thanks Michael. We would LOVE to get you onboarded to tidyup.agency.

@Ed_dfreitas @kodustech

@slicknet That's exactly the point: AI needs to be a tool to scale our work, not to remove our accountability for understanding what we're delivering. Reviewing PRs like this is a massive drain. But you can try @kodustech to help streamline the review process for those PRs.

I'm getting tired of reviewing AI-generated pull requests from folks who don't understand the code they're submitting. If you can't answer questions about the code in the PR, please don't send the PR.

Just re-sharing this blog post for no particular reason. humanwhocodes.com/blog/2026/01/h…