The Archive

Simon Willison releases Photo Scrubber, a browser-based tool using MediaPipe and BlazeFace for local face detection and blur.

Simon Willison live-blogging OpenAI DevDay 2026 keynote and announcements from San Francisco.

Simon Willison summarizes major LLM developments in 2026, including Claude Opus 4.5 and GPT-5.1 releases and industry trends.

Simon Willison observes S3 pricing has stagnated for a decade at $0.023/GB-month, with no reductions since 2016.

Simon Willison built a Bluesky bot detector using Claude Opus 5.5 to identify automated reply bots via API signals.

Simon Willison used Claude Opus 5.5 to generate pixel art animations of kākāpō parrots for a conference keynote.

Simon Willison argues coding agents increase software engineering complexity without proper discipline and domain expertise.

Simon Willison explains CSS shadow roots with interactive examples; off-topic for AI industry coverage.

Simon Willison hosting SF meetup Oct 14 for builders experimenting with coding agents to share work and learnings.

Simon Willison defends Model Context Protocol (MCP) as valuable for controlled agent deployment, contrasting sandboxed use vs. unrestricted terminal agents.

Simon Willison releases llm-keys-ui 0.1, a plugin for securely managing API keys in remote coding agent workflows without direct pasting.

Simon Willison commentary comparing current LLM skepticism to ignoring a major paradigm shift.

Simon Willison discusses animation techniques from 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, focusing on a pelican-bicycle scene.

Simon Willison reflects on influential technical blog posts including Spolsky's leaky abstractions concept and Larson's migration-based tech debt management.

Simon Willison released commit-rewriter 0.1, a web tool to edit commit messages and remove AI agent artifacts before publication.

Simon Willison demonstrates ChatGPT Work using GPT-6 Astra to generate running routes via OSM/Nominatim integration with 27-minute inference.

Simon Willison documents using GPT-6 Astra and ChatGPT Images 2.5 to generate Fabergé egg artwork and convert images to Blender 3D files via prompting.

Simon Willison flags concern that AI-accelerated research consumption may exhaust open problems and discourage scientists from sharing directions, threatening open science norms.

Simon Willison used Claude Fable 5.1 to build a WebAssembly-based video compressor tool via Claude Code.

Simon Willison used GPT-6 Astra to build an animated map projection transition tool with D3.

Simon Willison argues that complete rewrites rarely succeed when legacy systems remain active; technical debt management requires incremental refactoring, not abandonment.

Simon Willison demonstrates using Blender's Python API with ChatGPT Codex on macOS to generate images via coding agents.

Simon Willison's August newsletter covers OpenAI security incidents, game-playing agents (Fable 5, Sol 5.6), and Claude auto mode with model releases roundup.

Simon Willison documents OpenAI's ChatGPT desktop app bundling LibreOffice, Python, Node.js, and document processing tools in local cache.

Simon Willison built a GeoJSON map viewer tool using Claude Code and GPT-5.6-Sol for visualizing and exporting local political boundary maps.

Simon Willison breaks down OpenAI's ChatGPT Work product architecture: cloud-based version and desktop app with local file/program access.

Simon Willison argues effective AI coding agents require instruction and verification skills beyond line-by-line code review.

Simon Willison evaluates smolvm as a sandbox for executing untrusted Python/JavaScript with resource limits, demonstrating feasibility for safe user-provided task execution.

Simon Willison discusses productivity metrics for AI coding agents, arguing lines of code can meaningfully measure agent output despite conventional skepticism.

Simon Willison on Technical Blogging I was interviewed by Cynthia Dunlop for her "Write that blog!" series back in January, but I just realized I never linked to the interview from my own blog! It includes my answers to the following questions: Why did you start blogging – and why do you continue? What has been the most surprising impact of blogging for you? What blog post are you most proud of and why? What post was the most difficult to write and how did you tackle it? Any lessons learned that you want to share with the community? Your advice for people just getting started with blogging? A...