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Notes from our software factory

How we run product and development now that agents write the code.

Five steps of the software factory as boxes of different heights: the what, coding agents, testing, PR review and product review. One stream of work runs through all of them, only as tall as the shortest box. PR review is the shortest and caps the stream; the what and testing are close behind. Coding agents has the most room. The stream is labelled throughput.

Building with agents · 9 min read

Grove’s software factory

Coding agents sped up the writing of code, not the factory. Below we outline the main bottlenecks we have seen and what we have done to mitigate them.

Rob Yates ·

A feature PRD beside three project plans. Each project listed in the PRD leads to its own plan, made of outcomes, rules and UI.

How we work · 6 min read

A PRD template for coding agents

The typical PRD was written for a team that talks. For coding agents, keep it for the whole feature, then break it into small projects. PRD template included.

Blake McGregor ·

Latest

  • A card headed What and why, with four people beside it, above a dark panel headed How, with one person and plan mode on. An arrow runs from what and why down to how.

    Building with agents · 4 min read

    Claude Code plan mode isn’t a full plan

    Plan mode in your coding agent plans how to build, not what you’re building or why. Don’t wing it in Claude Code or Cursor. Plan the what and the why first.

    Blake McGregor ·

  • A feature in Grove holding a finished prototype, with two projects planned beside it.

    How we work · 6 min read

    Prototypes are for learning, not for building

    We stopped writing specs and let prototypes define features. Bad idea. Here’s what broke, and the method we use instead.

    Blake McGregor ·

  • Five steps on a loop, with arrows running clockwise: Understand, Imagine, Test, Learn, Decide, and back to Understand.

    Founder-led product · 6 min read

    It was never a design process

    There’s no design process or product process. It’s one way of working, and it belongs to every role.

    Kathryn Gallagher ·

  • An outline of strategy, its features and their projects, each marked with its owner. The founder or head of product owns the strategy and one feature. A product lead owns the other feature, and a product lead owns each project.

    Founder-led product · 5 min read

    The bottleneck isn’t the PM, it’s who gets to decide

    Coding agents moved the bottleneck from building to deciding. More product managers won’t clear it. Being clear about who decides what will.

    Blake McGregor ·

  • The Grove mark above the line “Great ideas deserve to flourish” on a deep green gradient.

    Grove updates · 5 min read

    Why we started Grove

    Coding agents made building fast. Deciding what to build, and checking it came out right, didn’t get faster. That’s why we started Grove.

    Blake McGregor ·

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