Bryce Watson
Software engineer.
I build production systems and open-source tools, and share what I find. Lately I've been working on how AI agents use tools and carry work through a project. Before this, I spent more than a decade shipping software at eBay.
Available for contract engineering work, directly or through your agency .
My consulting business is Watson Standard .
What I've built
All workA shared kit of rules, skills, and checks for my coding sessions. I'm trying out how much project work can happen in those sessions without a separate system coordinating them.
An agent for preparing Etsy listings, with memory for lessons from earlier runs and a person approving publication.
An open-source starter kit for adapting a REST API into an MCP server, with source and tests available to inspect.
Client work
I'm contracting with Portland State University on Akaya , an AI knowledge tool.
Latest published week
See the week in fullhonestweek learned to show where your sessions went wrong and shipped its next release, while the site’s public claims were checked against the code.
From my published work log. See the full log, or the goals it rolls up to.
Most-read guides
All writingThe three most-read guides on the site. If you arrived with a Claude Code or Cowork problem, one of these is probably it.
- Fixing 'VM Service Not Running' in Claude Desktop Cowork on WindowsOne error message covers at least six root causes. Here's my diagnostic decision tree, with PowerShell commands, log locations and a fix for each.
- Claude Code deletes your old session logs after 30 days by defaultClaude Code deletes session transcripts older than 30 days by default. Raise cleanupPeriodDays in ~/.claude/settings.json to stop it; lost logs stay lost.
- Where Claude Desktop Actually Stores Your Cowork ConversationsWhere Cowork conversations live on Windows, found through session manifests: transcript paths, message and tool-call records, and per-session costs.
Elsewhere
GitHub for the code, LinkedIn for the working history, the RSS feed for new posts, and hello@brycewatson.com for anything else. I don't run a mailing list.