Jonathan Loos

The Claude Code team uses Claude Code to build Claude Code. That's super meta. Last night at Volta, Rishabh A. hosted Halifax's first Claude Code meetup with support from Anthropic. We learned, demoed, and nerded out about claude code. I highly recommend checking the tool out. Rishabh kicked things off by showing how someone with technical background but limited coding experience could build entire slide decks and working apps. Then the Claude Code engineering team jumped on to talk about their product. They are fully dogfooding their product. They're using the exact tool they're building to build the tool.... Which means every friction point they feel, they can immediately fix. Great incentive alignment. Matt Cooper's demo was the highlight for me. He walked through his full-stack setup using Claude with skills and MCP. Here's the key insight on skills: you can create focused skill sets for different scenarios. One for frontend design, another for writing tests, another for library functions, etc. It's like giving Claude specialized knowledge for specific contexts, which reduces hallucinations and keeps the coding session on track. Matt also runs test-driven development to ensure new code doesn't break existing features. During the event, It was great to catch up with Abdul Samad, Omar Dahleh, and Ahmed Abdelmoaty. We talked vibe coding setups and LinkedIn posting. You know, the essentials. Halifax's AI community keeps showing up. Events like this prove it. If you haven't explored Claude Code yet, it's worth checking out!

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... what he said! ⬇️ There are many reasons why housing is vastly produced only by the private sector (read "Home Truths" by Carolyn Whitzman for more on that.) Spoiler alert: our housing crisis began when governments quit building homes. What we’re left with is a complex market propped up by prosperity, immigration, foreign investment, and cheap money—none of which are in abundant supply right now. So until governments or other players step back in to build, blaming “greedy” developers misses the bigger picture: private companies were never designed to solve social needs. Any yet: we're expected to.

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Plaidifying the Internet: How Deck is Unlocking the Next Frontier of User-Permissioned Data by Nima Olumi. “There’s a massive universe of high-value data locked behind usernames and passwords,” said co-founder Frédérick Lavoie. “And until now, there hasn’t been a reliable, scalable way to access it.” Read more: https://lnkd.in/gRybDRnU

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GTA 6 has been in development for over a decade, with 1,000+ developers, and $2B spent. The next Elder Scrolls? It’s been 13 years since Skyrim launched. Thirteen. And they’re still building the new one. These long dev cycles drain budgets, burn out teams, and leave players waiting years for innovation that should be moving faster. I wanted to see if this was possible for myself. So I asked our concept and 3D artists to design the most expensive character they can think of with no shortcuts, max detail, and AAA polish. The kind you’d see on a $200M project. It took them about 30 days. Then we ran it through our internal AI tool with the same level of quality, and same creative direction. But 60% of the work was done in a single day. The full was 10 days max. That’s a fundamental shift in how games can be built. This is how we break free from decade-long dev cycles. By amplifying artists, not replacing them. This is the future we should building towards. Games that don’t take 13 years to ship, but still feel just as rich and just as real. With all the tools at our disposal in 2025, innovation doesn’t have to move slowly anymore.

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I saw a post joking that AI “one-shot” the GTA 6 website. Obviously, that post is a joke, but it’s an extreme version of something I keep seeing that’s harder to spot when you don’t build software. A lot of the people claiming they “one-shotted” an app didn’t actually do that. They used an LLM, but the result came from years of software engineering experience and very tight steering. Knowing what to ask for, when something was wrong, how to restructure it, and where things would break isn’t coming from the prompt. That judgment was already there. None of this was a single pass. The work was iterative and guided by someone who already understood how systems behave under real use. The model generated output inside constraints it didn’t create. AI is genuinely useful. It speeds up exploration and makes it easier to get something on the screen. It is not doing what these posts suggest it’s doing yet. When that distinction disappears, people outside the industry walk away with a distorted picture of the work. The difficulty didn’t vanish. The credit just shifted away from the part that actually matters.

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I asked AI to play Steve Jobs and tear apart my SaaS portfolio. (Context: I build GIS tools for the Canadian energy sector — three separate products I've spent two years on. A coordinate lookup tool, an Alberta well finder, and a national well finder.) AI Steve's verdict? One of my products is the Newton — kill it. The other two are really one product in a state of indecision. Sometimes the truth hurts. But I'd rather hear it from a brutally honest AI than learn it from a brutally honest market. Here's what it said 👇 Would you welcome a brutally honest AI to review your product portfolio? What would you ask it to evaluate? . . . PS — Tools used: Claude Desktop (Opus 4.6) for multi-project prompt creation, analysis, and the Jobs-lens review, Claude Code for the codebase/database audits, and Fish AI for text-to-speech.

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The CRA just posted an RFP asking for a local solution to generate Java code. Canada is finally waking up to what we should have been building all along. We spend $50B+ annually on R&D. Less than 2% of that IP gets commercialized. Over half gets assigned to foreign companies. The gap isn't invention. It's translation. Vision to execution. Idea to Production-Ready code that stays here. When a federal agency asks for local AI tooling to build software, it's a signal. Not just procurement. Recognition that exportable IP and sovereign capability matter. This is the bottleneck I've been watching for years. Brilliant innovators who can't build alone. Risk-averse capital that won't fund pre-revenue deep tech. A translation layer that costs $400k or doesn't exist at all. The RFP is small. The shift it represents is not.

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UCP is still evolving. And honestly, so is the infrastructure conversation around it. Over the past few months, I’ve been testing and mapping what happens when Shopify logic is asked to operate outside the storefront. Not in theory. In architecture. Most Shopify builds assume transactions begin inside a theme. Browse → cart → checkout. That assumption holds… until execution starts upstream. What I’m seeing so far is this: When commerce shifts from destination-based to distributed, execution becomes the constraint. Not traffic. Not design. Execution. In this cheatsheet, I outlined 7 questions I’d personally start with if I were preparing a Shopify architecture for UCP-style environments. 👇 This space is still forming. Standards aren’t settled. But pressure on merchant logic is increasing. If you’re building on Shopify and thinking about agent-mediated commerce, these are practical checkpoints worth exploring. I’ll keep sharing what I’m testing and observing as it evolves. Follow Kyle Hebert for ongoing breakdowns on AI-compatible Shopify infrastructure.

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July 1st. Canadian 𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺. Brokers... 𝗯𝘂𝗰𝗸𝗹𝗲 𝘂𝗽. Every reform promises “flexibility.” What it usually delivers: • More client questions • More documentation • More edge cases • More “can you just quickly…” There's no time left to scale up the team for this upcoming spike in workload. It's going to be an operational stress test. If your workflows are loose, you'll know in April (come July renewals). This is where automation earns its keep. Pathway doesn’t “do AI magic.” (yet!) It does something more valuable: • Standardizes process • Removes repetitive admin • Keeps compliance tasks from ballooning • Protects your team’s time Reform is coming whether you optimize or not, so the question is: Do you want July to feel like a scramble… or a controlled rollout? Reach out to our team today - we can get your data synced up and first emails going out in April. But don't wait, this is a tight schedule!

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“Accessibility is about making technology usable for everyone, in every circumstance.” Jason G. is a Senior Software Engineer at Ethyca working on the frontend systems that underpin real-time privacy enforcement. With a background in fine art and a deep commitment to accessible design, Jason’s work bridges creativity and engineering rigor. Read the full interview to learn how he approaches complexity in consent infrastructure and why the details matter: https://fid.es/3IJhCiR

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I built something small called pointrack.ca It’s a simple point tracker you can use on team calls just for fun. Give points for good jokes, bold takes, or quick problem solving. Take points away for terrible dad jokes. There’s no backend and no accounts. Everything stays in the browser. Just a lightweight way to make remote calls a little less robotic.

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🔗 QUICK TIP for Canadian Founders: Want to get your MVP off the ground FAST? Consider the no-code approach—launch in just 7–30 days! Platforms like Bubble and Webflow can save you time and money by removing the need for extensive coding knowledge. This isn't just theory; many in our Toronto startup community are already doing it and seeing tangible results. 🚀 And it's not just for techies! Whether you're in FinTech, HealthTech, or Retail, no-code tools can empower you to iterate quickly and test your market fit without burning through your cash runway. Have you considered how no-code can accelerate YOUR startup journey? Let's discuss how you're leveraging these tools or what barriers you're facing! #TorontoStarts #NoCode #MVP #StartupGrowth

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I talked to dozens of Quebec business owners about grants. And they all fell into one of 5 categories. Most of them are leaving free money on the table—not because they don't qualify, but because nobody taught them how the game works. This carousel breaks down exactly where you fit (and how we help). Swipe through. 👉 #Subventions #PME #SME #Quebec #BusinessFunding #Entrepreneurship #SupportLocal

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Kitchener-Waterloo-based cybersecurity startup Cavelo Inc. has raised a $5 million CAD seed extension round led by existing investor Inovia Capital. 𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗗 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗗𝗘𝗧𝗔𝗜𝗟𝗦 👉 https://lnkd.in/dv9Qra-G James Mignacca Eldon Sprickerhoff Mandy B. Christina Strambu Abdallah Abid Alexandra Kehayas Noor Jahangir Shaun Guidolin Clay Lambert Logan Campbell Paige P. Katherine B. Etienne Gauthier Kris Shoemaker Katie Walford Larry Meador Kimber P. Jake Slinger Taha Mubashir Matt Koivisto Callum Currie Brendan Reekie Anoop K. Phil G. Nathan Brunkard #Startups #Founders #FundingNews #VentureCapital #CyberSecurity #PrivateEquity

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Track nothing and you fly blind. Track everything and you risk nudging teams to optimize vanity numbers instead of real customer value. So our Engineering Management crew here at Vendasta headed to the whiteboard and asked: Which numbers would actually help us ship better software, right now? We set two ground rules: * Start small, refine fast. Perfect‑on‑paper metrics that never get implemented are useless. * Coach with data, never grade with it. Dev‑level stats exist to spark healthy habits, not to rank people. Here are just a few of the starter metrics we’re exploring: * Ramp‑up velocity ⏩ - How quickly do new engineers reach full productivity? * Roadmap vs. reactive work 🎯 - Are we spending capacity on strategic goals or fighting fires? * AI adoption & impact 🤖 - Who’s using the AI tools our org is standardizing on, and is it actually moving the productivity needle? * Hiring‑pipeline health 🏃‍♂️ - Time‑to‑fill, drop‑off rates, and how that aligns with the roadmap. This is just a taste. There are plenty more on the board, and we’ll trim or add as reality teaches us. To turn ideas into something useful Megan Cheesbrough (Engineering Manager), Lyle McRae (our new Senior Data Engineer), and I have started jamming on a proposal: a BigQuery + Dataform backbone with clear data standards so we can plug sources in once and let AI workflows keep everything fresh. Nothing’s built yet, but Lyle’s bringing proven patterns from past wins to shape a framework that fits our needs. Big unlock if we get it right. Our Principles: * Value first, vanity never. * Automate the grunt work; manage the AI. * Tell a story the whole org cares about. We’ve kicked off an MVP and will iterate. Your turn: What’s one metric that genuinely changed how your engineering org works? Drop a thought below. I’m keen to compare notes as we turn this whiteboard into reality.

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Toolchain, build systems, SDKs, and anything similar are complicated beasts. Not every vendor gets them right. Midstall Software is committing to make using and building them better. By using open source software, this is very possible. And of course, by using Nix, this is fully reproducible and declarative. That makes scaling this between one developer's setup to an entire organization's worth possible.

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$60,000 to $285,000 per attack. That’s the average cost of a cyber incident for a Quebec SMB. As Cybersecurity Awareness Month wraps up, we've built a FREE risk assessment tool to help you identify vulnerabilities... before it costs you. It’s quick, simple, and made for business leaders who want clarity, not jargon. Because cybersecurity isn’t just about tech, it’s about trust, strategy, and keeping your business running. For any business, cybersecurity should never be limited to one month a year.   Try it for a limited time here : https://lnkd.in/eHmpA32k

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