https://nathandanielsen.com/post/ Recent content in Posts on Nathan Danielsen's writings Hugo en-us Sun, 26 Jul 2026 15:51:44 -0700 https://nathandanielsen.com/planning-skill-that-switches-models/ Sun, 26 Jul 2026 08:00:00 +0000 https://nathandanielsen.com/planning-skill-that-switches-models/ Two lines of YAML at the top of a skill file will make Claude Code run that skill on a different model than the rest of your session: model: fable effort: xhigh No JavaScript, no wrapper script, no MCP server. These are documented frontmatter fields, and Claude Code honors them by actually calling a different model — not by asking the current one to try harder. That’s worth having because planning and executing want different things. https://nathandanielsen.com/crafting-skills-through-dog-fooding/ Thu, 02 Jul 2026 08:00:00 +0000 https://nathandanielsen.com/crafting-skills-through-dog-fooding/ The prototype rendered perfectly. Clean layout, working interactions, valid markup — everything I would have thought to check for. It also looked nothing like our product, because the skill had ignored our internal design system completely and wildcatted its own CSS from scratch. That was the first few rounds of an internal UI prototyping skill I still maintain, and it’s a worse failure than a screenshot makes it look. The skill exists to produce prototypes that do two things at once: read as ours against the internal design system, and fold into an existing application without setting off a UI rewrite and a styles audit. https://nathandanielsen.com/writing-online/ Sun, 03 Sep 2023 08:01:00 +0000 https://nathandanielsen.com/writing-online/ Changing Landscape and Interests In January of this year, I spent sometime revamping my blog and thinking about topics that I’m interested in writing about. Funny thing is that I have written and talked about this topics extensively but didn’t bother to publish it online for all the reasons - some of it just that I forgot to share it. Also with the increased sophisticated of ChatGPT and other generative/ assistive tools, it’s a whole new world in some interesting ways that can be viewed negatively, but also can be extremely powerful in composing thoughts and faciliating story lines. https://nathandanielsen.com/my-writing-plan-for-2023/ Wed, 04 Jan 2023 08:01:00 +0000 https://nathandanielsen.com/my-writing-plan-for-2023/ Potential Blog Posts in 2023 and Beyond One of my plans for 2023 is to spend more time writing in public. In my job, I spend a lot of time writing and coaching / guiding people through a variety of the topics below. In my opinion, either the answers to the questions that I have are hard to find or they are overly aligned with certain engineering organizational philosophies. I don’t think that I’ll get through all of these topics, but I hope try. https://nathandanielsen.com/how-to-onboard-a-new-engineer/ Tue, 19 Feb 2019 00:00:01 +0000 https://nathandanielsen.com/how-to-onboard-a-new-engineer/ How to Onboard a New Developer On their first day, ensure that they have access to critical accounts such as github, flowdock, project management platform, etc on day one. There should be a new team member checklist that lists all systems where the developer should have access on day one. Assign a on-boarding buddy who provides advice and guidance on different aspects of working on the team. The buddy should be: https://nathandanielsen.com/fire-cracker-10k-turning-it-up/ Tue, 19 Feb 2019 00:00:01 +0000 https://nathandanielsen.com/fire-cracker-10k-turning-it-up/ This morning I decided to push myself and ended up exceeding my own expectations. It was the last scheduled running race of the Pasadena Tri Club February Trifecta. Starting with the Pasadena Half Marathon, continuing with the Huntington Beach Half and ending with the Firecracker 10k, it was an off-season challenge to stay in shape during the holiday season. As a result, it has been a busy month of running.