Title: Issue #226: The true value of developers in the AI era Publication: Ready, Set, Cloud! Series: Ready, Set, Cloud Picks of the Week Author: Allen Helton Published: July 27, 2026 URL: https://www.readysetcloud.io/newsletter/226/ As we see more and more code being written by AI agents, developers need to realize their value was never the coding part. ### 🦸 Community Superhero Our community superhero this week is [Maciej Radzikowski](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mradzikowski/), lead developer at Merapar. I first featured Maciej's work in this newsletter in [issue #3](https://readysetcloud.io/newsletter/3)! Maciej created [aws-sdk-client-mock](https://github.com/m-radzikowski/aws-sdk-client-mock), a library I think many of us have used at some point. He's a great writer and clearly a talented open source developer as well. Thanks for everything you do, Maciej! ### 💯 Spotlight Here's a PSA to those of you who deploy to AWS via GitHub Actions: [GitHub OIDC recently made a change that might break your AWS Trust Policy](https://builder.aws.com/content/3Gkby3FG8juxMqEXkwPzk5hsPz3/github-oidc-changes-that-can-break-aws-deployments). [George Rolston](https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-rolston/) wrote up exactly what changed and how to fix it. In short, they changed the sub format for new repositories created after July 15. So if you're having issues deploying to AWS with a new repo, check your trust policy - it might be too strict and only allow the old format. ### 🔥 My Favorite Content Our wild-west of an industry is finally starting to converge on a handful of protocols for agent development. But there are so many, each with their own specific niche. A great article was published on the AWS Open Source blog last week about [how Strands Agents SDK uses all of them](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/open-protocols-with-the-strands-agents-sdk/). It explains what some of these emerging protocols are and what they're used for, then shows how you can utilize them with a working code sample. I love everything about this, especially how grounding it makes agent development feel. We got a masterclass from [Luca Mezzalira](https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucamezzalira/) last week on how developers should be feeling about the state of our industry right now. In his article, he talks about how [writing code was never the point](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/prototype-easy-part-luca-mezzalira-u65le/), but rather, it's the thinking and battle scars we develop over the years. This is a reframing of our day-to-day lives coming from a trusted authority. I'm a big fan of his perspective! We haven't said "cold start" in a while. I'm going to break the silence with a pretty neat article from [Pratik Singh](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kitarp29/), who did some benchmarking to see if [SOCI eliminates Fargate cold starts](https://dev.to/aws-builders/defeating-the-fargate-cold-start-chaos-with-soci-43l9). Spoiler alert: it doesn't. But it does make some meaningful improvements in certain scenarios. SOCI stands for Seekable OCI and has been available in Fargate [for about three years](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-fargate-enables-faster-container-startup-using-seekable-oci/). My conclusion here is that if you aren't using it already, it's time to give it a shot. ### 💡 Tip of the Week I found what I expect to be a polarizing post on reviewing agent code. I'd love to hear everyone's take on this. Instead of reading code, is it sufficient to surround your agent in extreme constraints like tests, QA procedures, and quality metrics? ### Last Words What's your stance on agent coding? I see people taking hard stances on both ends of the spectrum, from never using it ever to what we just saw above where we have agents do *all* the coding and we don't even look at it. We're in such an exciting time in tech, I feel like both sides have merit and nobody is doing it right or wrong. That's my take on the week, but what's yours? What did I miss? What made you nod along (or 🙄)? Hit reply if you're reading the email. Prefer socials? Ping me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/allenheltondev), [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/allenheltondev/), or [email](mailto:allenheltondev@gmail.com). Happy coding! Allen