The only chapter that names products, and the one written to go out of date. Three topics describe the terminal agents, editor assistants and cloud agents of October 2026 with the same fields for each; two more say what carries over when the tools change and where to go after this book.
5 topics
Fourteen chapters said "the agent" and "the project instructions file" and never named a product. That was deliberate: the habits of this book work with any coding agent, and product names, file names, permission syntax and prices change every month. They had to go somewhere, and this chapter is where.
The first three topics describe the tools as of October 2026, sorted by where they run: in the terminal, in the editor and in the cloud. The main tools each get the same six fields in the same order: what it is, setup, instructions file, permissions and sandbox, billing, and the chapters of this book each setting serves, so a reader can compare them and the monthly audit can rewrite them. The pages describe; they never rank. Where a vendor's documentation could not confirm a detail, the page says so instead of guessing.
The last two topics name no products and should age slowly. One sorts what carries over to the next tool from what must be relearned, and shows how to evaluate a new tool in an afternoon by replaying a task you already finished. The other closes the book.
How fast each part of this book goes out of date
Tool pages, this chapter's first three
names, files, modes and plans; checked and rewritten every month
Claims marked "as of 2026"
studies, law and capabilities that are still moving; check these first
The repository
instructions, commands, tests and the team policy; carries over to any tool
The loop and its habits
specify, context, generate, read, test, commit or discard; the slowest to change