The Done List

"For decades, the to-do list has been a catalog of debt, a deceptively thin list of items to do, with icebergs of work hidden beneath the surface. AI transforms tasks to work that has already been done. Vibe Kanban, Gastown, & Conductor are the first instantiations of this for software developers. They have jargon-laden descriptions like "multi-agent orchestrator" or "visualizer," but they are, at heart, simple & beautiful Kanban boards of done & dusted work."

"As long as I've worked with computers, the middle of computer work has been the most important & time-consuming part. An idea came quickly. The finished product - code, presentation, email, or spreadsheet - shipped in moments. Most of the effort was pushing pixels, writing code, or massaging formulas. As AI improves, & it has very meaningfully in the last few months, AI completes more of the middle. In fact, planning & evaluation become the two most important parts of MacBook manipulation."

AI increasingly automates the mid-level labor of producing finished artifacts, turning tasks into work that is already done. Tools like Vibe Kanban, Gastown, and Conductor present automation as simple Kanban boards that hold completed work. The automation reduces manual coding, pixel pushing, and formula massaging, leaving planning, intent formation, and evaluation as the primary human responsibilities. Design and clarity of instruction become the primary constraints on productivity, as more of the execution can be offloaded to AI. The to-do list therefore becomes a list of done items awaiting human approval, shifting developer workflows toward specifying desired outcomes.

Read at Tomasz Tunguz