Compound Engineering: Manage Teams of AI Agents with Kieran Klaassen of Cora

This New Way

Aydin and Kieran Klaassen (Cora) unpack Compound Engineering—treating every task as an investment so the next time is faster. Kieran shares his path from film composer to startup CTO and live-demos how he plans → prototypes → ships a feature using AI agents (Claude Code), then runs multi-agent reviews. They discuss why managers are primed to orchestrate agents, how to capture your own feedback patterns, and why there’s “no excuse not to have a prototype” anymore.Timestamps0:07 — “Every piece of work should be an investment.”2:15 — What Cora is: an AI Gmail layer that auto-archives ~80% and briefs you twice daily.3:32 — Launch notes & early user reactions.5:21 — The Claude Code pricing saga and “finding the limits.”8:06 — Compound Engineering defined (codify how you work so AI does it next time).15:01 — From “automation” to pattern-capturing systems; natural-language rules over brittle workflows. 22:03 — Demo kickoff: planning the “Invite friends” improvement inside Cora.26:11 — Rapid mockups from a screenshot + voice description; iterate in seconds.33:06 — Multi-agent planning: repo research, best-practices scout, framework researcher.41:01 — Human judgment on plans; simplify when encryption/perf add hidden complexity.50:00 — Feature running end-to-end; agentic PR + test flow; sub-agent code reviews.Tools & Technologies MentionedCora — AI inbox copilot for Gmail that prioritizes, summarizes, and drafts replies; batches the rest into twice-daily briefs.Claude Code (Anthropic) — Agentic coding/terminal assistant used for planning, building, and reviews.Monologue — Voice-to-text for quickly describing UI and generating mockups.Every.to — Partner/design/content hub Kieran collaborates with; also publishes his writing on Compound Engineering.GitHub + GitHub CLI — Issues, branches, PRs automated by agents from plan → code → review.VS Code (with Claude Code extension) — IDE setup for hands-on edits when needed.Anthropic Console Prompt Generator — Used to scaffold robust prompts/agents, then refined manually.Model mix for reviews (e.g., “GPT-5 Codecs,” “Claude Opus”) — Alternative model passes for plan/code critique.Fellow.ai — Aydin’s AI meeting assistant for accurate notes, actions, and privacy-aware summaries.Subscribe at⁠ thisnewway.com⁠ to get the step-by-step playbooks, tools, and workflows.