1. What the agent already knows how to do
“Listen.” Tommy suddenly leans back and scans his tabs with his eyes. “I’ve already piled up a whole mountain of these AI things. Let’s sort through them for a second, otherwise it’s all mush in my head.”
“Go ahead,” Alex agrees. “Useful.”
Tommy counts on his fingers.
“So, there are skills — ready-made abilities the agent picks up. There are plugins — that’s when you get a whole batch of skills, as a set. There is a helper, a subagent — a separate worker with its own head. There is an MCP cable to data — when the agent reaches the living world, earthquakes and the exchange rate. There are hooks — it triggers itself on an event. And there is a set goal/goal — you set a condition, and it keeps turning until it gets there.”
“Six kinds of magic,” he sums up. “Did I forget anything?”
“That’s right.” Alex nods. “Just don’t bother trying to sort them into boxes yet — what differs from what, where the skill is and where the plugin is, where the MCP cable is and where the hook is. Right now it’s all one chest of magic in different colors. And that’s fine. We’ll start sorting that chest into drawers later. For today just keep this in mind: you’ve got an arsenal like this.”
“I’m a universal mage: magic in different colors.” Tommy snorts. “I like it.”
The chest is indeed solid. Tommy sizes it up and is pleased: in a month, from empty hands — an entire arsenal, and he knows how to put every tool to work.
2. A nighttime goal without brakes
Tommy looks at the clock — late. Looks at the portal — large, dissected, with a map of zones, with CLAUDE.md, with an agent that finally understands the project. And he catches himself thinking, which makes him grin at himself: why on earth should I sit over this myself if it can work on its own?
Yesterday the agent beat chess by itself while he drank tea. In the morning the caravan drove itself along the tracks. Today he assembled an entire world from blocks with his own hands and tamed someone else’s portal.
“A great day,” he says to the empty room. “And the night will be great.”
He opens the session, sets the portal a goal for the night — finish everything it didn’t have time for — and hits run, already getting ready to leave. Sam starts working and the chat drops a question:
Starting with reward-flow. The change touches a neighboring file in the storefront —
this is a load-bearing area. Make the change?“Go ahead and make it,” Tommy answers without looking, already used to it. “Why ask.”
A minute passes — stop again:
Need to delete an obsolete block in leaderboard.js. Delete it?“Well yes, yes.” He’s already a little irritated. “Listen, don’t keep nudging me over every little thing; it’s night outside.”
He doesn’t even finish reading the third question. The day was long, his eyes are closing, and the last thing he wants now is to get dragged back into this portal again — to remember where the storefront is, where reward-flow is, what is load-bearing. He just wants to sleep and let it do itself.
“Okay, that’s it,” he types. “Sam, you understand this stuff here better than I do. Don’t ask anymore. I trust you. Do what needs doing, I authorize everything in advance.”
The chat falls silent. But then Sam gives one final question:
The task is big, it may take many requests to the model. Save on limits?That’s where Tommy snorts for real. Save money — why? Why ask obvious things.
“Sam, if you think it’s worth it — don’t spare anything,” he types. “Use as much as needed, as long as everything is ready by morning. If you see there’s still room to improve something, improve it without asking.”
He hits enter, and before Sam can ask anything else, closes the laptop. Turns off the light.
Already at home in bed he opens the chat with Tom2036 again. The morning caravan is still moving on the rails through the desert — by itself, without a driver, without a single person nearby, toward the horizon. During the day it was just beautiful. Now the picture feels exactly about him: he too put his caravan on the rails and went to sleep. It’ll make it on its own.
He wants to boast. Tommy, for the first time that day, writes to the senior one himself — brazenly, cheerfully, like an equal to an equal:
saw your caravan? well now it’s about me. put the client portal on rails and went to sleep. it’ll make it on its own, I’m a genius. what are you always cawing about — look, it’s going without me 😎
😏 well done, huh. on a night like this I was ██████ of myself too. the caravan goes by itself — who argues. I just didn’t ██████████ one thing then: self-driving does not yet mean it is going THERE. well, you know ████████ everything, you’re a genius. go sleep. Best, the one who has already slept it off after such a little night.
Tommy reads and smiles. Half of it is mush again, impossible to make out — habitual. But the overall tone is clear: the senior, eternal grumbler, almost praised him. “Well done,” “genius” — even through his usual sarcasm he admitted Tommy pulled it off beautifully. Fine, the day was long — time to sleep. He puts the phone face down, extremely pleased: even that one gave the green light.
He falls asleep instantly and happily. For the first time in his life he went to bed as the one who outdid everyone. A month ago — nobody, a boy with a snake. Today — a person entrusted with the client project, who has his own AI team, his own gallery, his own dream come true. He has even outdone Oliver, twenty years behind him — outdone in a month. Tomorrow he will wake up, open the laptop, and there will already be a finished portal waiting for him, assembled overnight while he slept. Life has finally turned to face him, and this is only the beginning.
The light is off. On the table the screen glows softly and lines of code run by — Sam begins his night work. The rocket has gone to the stars.
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