---
title: "The Shape of Things to Come, Part 1: The Continuous Thunderdome"
description: "Seven months after launching Gas Town as a reusable IDE for agent swarms, Steve Yegge says he only used it to build itself and the next Claude model burned it down."
author: "Pau Friedman"
kind: "link"
published_at: "2026-08-02"
url: "https://pau.fm/blog/2026/08/02/the-shape-of-things-to-come"
markdown_url: "https://pau.fm/blog/2026/08/02/the-shape-of-things-to-come.md"
canonical_url: "https://pau.fm/blog/2026/08/02/the-shape-of-things-to-come"
external_url: "https://yegge.ai/essays/the-shape-of-things-to-come/"
---

# [The Shape of Things to Come\, Part 1\: The Continuous Thunderdome](<https://yegge.ai/essays/the-shape-of-things-to-come/>)

> Gas Town was intended to be reusable, but I only ever wound up using it to build itself. Gas Town
> fell apart at the seams with Opus 4.7. Up through 4.6 it was working brilliantly.

Gas Town launched as “a new take on the IDE for 2026,” a reusable system for running 20–30 agents.
Seven months later, Yegge says he only ever used it to build itself, and the next Claude model
burned it down. That is not a platform. It is a prompt artifact fitted to the behavioral quirks of
one model generation.

In January I called the project Claude psychosis: every model failure became another layer of
Mayor/Deacon/Dog lore, and the continuing elaboration was treated as evidence. Yegge now says he has
“given up on building reusable harnesses.” Congratulations to the rest of us on reaching August in
January.