technology
Introduction
Ready machines for coding agents: describe what a project needs once, and each agent platform gets a setup file it can read, checked against its rules, with the setup run …
Alpha: a working compiler, proven on a clean machine
Ready machines for coding agents
Describe what your project needs once. Preconfiguration writes the setup file each agent platform reads, checks each one, and runs the setup on a clean machine with your tests before any agent starts.
5 platforms
Written from one preconfig.yaml: dev containers, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, cloud-init and a plain setup script
About 1 minute
From a clean Ubuntu 24.04 machine to passing tests, with PostgreSQL and Redis running (49.6 to 73.0 s)
32 of 32
Deliberately planted bugs caught by the tests
3.3 MB
The whole engine: one binary, built on Go's standard library alone
Measured on the Alpha on one Linux machine with 2 CPUs. The Beta measures every number again with real agents on the platforms themselves.
Articles and case studies
All posts →
technology
How It Works
The idea. Describe the machine a project needs in one short file. preconfig writes the setup file each agent platform reads, checks the files a repository already has, …
case studies
Draft and Build Case Study: Five Files Read, One Spec Drafted, Setups Written for Five Platforms
Most repositories already say what they need. A .python-version file names the Python, requirements.txt the packages, a compose file the databases the developers run, …
case studies
Hand-Written Setup Case Study: Fifteen Errors in One Service's Agent Setup, None Flagged When It Was Written
A team that uses two or three agents writes the same setup two or three times: once as a Copilot workflow, once as a Cursor environment, once as a dev container. Each …
case studies
Clean Machine Case Study: Ready in 49.6 Seconds, and a Missing Redis Caught at the Ready Step
A setup file that looks right proves nothing. The only proof is a machine that starts empty, runs the setup, and then passes the project’s own tests. That is what …
case studies
Upgrade Case Study: PostgreSQL 16 to 17 in One Line, With Every Platform's Files Following
Setup files are written once and changed many times. Every upgrade of a runtime or a database has to reach every file that installs it: the dev container, the Copilot …
next uses
Next Uses: Six Places Where a Ready Machine Pays Off
The four case studies share one pattern. A machine that starts empty has to become a known, working machine before anyone can do useful work on it, and the knowledge of …
technology
Preconfiguration Explained: How One Checklist Gets Every AI Coding Agent's Machine Ready Before It Starts
Preconfiguration is a prototype of a small program called preconfig. It gets a computer ready for an AI coding agent before the agent starts, from one short checklist, …
roadmap
The Next Preconfiguration Prototype: A 12-Week Beta on the Agent Platforms Themselves
The Alpha answered one question. Can one short spec be compiled into every agent platform’s setup file, checked against each platform’s rules, and its setup …
Get in touch
Teams running AI coding agents who would like to try the Beta on their own repositories, and anyone with a stack or a platform the project should test, are welcome to write.