February 2, 2026

Building in Public: Lessons from MACX

This article is part of a series about MACX Exocortex.

”Tests Pass” ≠ “Works”

[TODO: The Forge TDD story - 146 tests passed, build failed. jsdom lies. E2E as forcing function]

Over-Prompting Reduces Quality

[TODO: Codex works best with minimal direction. Trust the model]

Context Is Not Memory

[TODO: If you don’t write it down, it’s gone. Persist immediately]

The 30-Minute Timeout

[TODO: Why 15 minutes wasn’t enough, complex coding tasks need time]

Agent Profiles > System Prompts

[TODO: Separation of identity from task, why it matters]

What I’d Do Differently

[TODO: Honest retrospective]


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