The TWIMCO notebook

Field notes.

Useful observations from inside the work.
For people building a better way.

378 notes

Editorial engraving of a sunlit hat shop where the owner compares a two-price tag with a chat answer on her phone while a bookkeeper checks the same items on a laptop.

AI shopping agents can now see your compare-at prices. Spend five minutes on what they'll say

Since October 9, Shopify passes your compare-at price to AI shopping agents, so they can tell a shopper something is marked down. That's useful when the markdown is real and awkward when it's a leftover from last spring.

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Editorial engraving of a glass-walled library study room where a developer circles a date on a paper calendar while a tester compares an app on two Android phones.

Product & engineeringField note

Your Android app's extension runs out November 1. Which of these five situations are you in?

Google Play's extra time for apps that don't yet target Android 16 ends on November 1. Whether that's a crisis or a non-event depends on one number in your app's build, and on whether you need to ship anything before the holidays.

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Editorial engraving of a sunny street corner where a city supervisor writes down a pothole report on a clipboard while a neighbor on a bicycle points it out.

OperationsField note

When the service request app goes offline, where does the pothole go?

Columbia, South Carolina took its resident app offline after a ransomware attack and gave people a phone number instead. That's the right first move. The harder questions come next, and every city should answer them before it's their turn.

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Editorial engraving of a skylit yarn shop back room where a seller sticks a return label on a parcel while a helper tracks a week of days on a tablet.

CommerceField note

Amazon's December 18 return rule: a prepaid label in seven days, or Amazon refunds for you

If you ship your own Amazon orders, the address-only return label is going away on December 18. After that, every US return needs a prepaid label within seven days, or Amazon may refund the buyer and take it from your balance.

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Editorial engraving of a bright bicycle shop where a support lead reviews drafted replies on a laptop while the owner compares them with paper letters before anything is sent.

ReviewsReview

Resend Inboxes review: a shared inbox your agent can work, with a draft folder between it and your customers

Resend now gives you a real inbox at support@yourdomain, shared by your team and an AI agent that can sort, label and draft replies. The part worth noticing is what it can't do: send anything by itself.

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Editorial engraving of a sunny barn studio where a founder reads a prepared payment on his phone before approving it, beside a laptop and a paper invoice.

AI & judgmentField note

Stripe will let an AI agent pay your invoices. Start by letting it prepare them

Stripe now lets agents like ChatGPT and Claude check a business's balances, pay invoices and move money between accounts. Spending limits are still a few weeks away. Until they arrive, let the agent do the prep and keep the money move for a person.

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Editorial engraving of a schoolhouse-turned-nonprofit office where a volunteer reviews connected apps on a laptop while the director removes one key from a key ring.

AI in practiceField note

Which AI apps can open your company's Google Drive? Find out in 45 minutes

Every time someone at work clicks 'Allow' on a new AI tool, it may get the same Drive and Gmail access they have. Google Workspace already shows you which apps got through. Here's how to look, in under an hour, and what to do with what you find.

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Editorial engraving of a bright repair storefront where an assistant inspects returned earbuds while a seller decides on a tablet what to do with each return.

CommerceField note

Keep it, or send it back? Two new Amazon FBA settings let you decide per return reason

Amazon now lets FBA sellers pick which return reasons get a partial refund instead of a trip back to the warehouse, and tell Amazon what 'sellable as new' means for their products. Set both before the holiday returns arrive in January.

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In a bright open office, a grey-bearded man unpins small cards from a sprawling branching chart on the wall while a woman at a light wood table holds open one thick tabbed binder beside a laptop, a mug, a phone and a stack of cards.

AI & judgmentField note

Your AI agent doesn't need an org chart

Anthropic's new guidance says many business agents work better as one agent that loads what it needs than as a team of specialists passing notes. If someone is pitching you a router, five agents and an orchestrator, here's how to read that proposal.

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Editorial engraving of a café window counter where a designer and a product manager compare the same app on a folding phone and a regular phone.

Product & engineeringField note

"Our app works on iPhone. Do we need to do anything for iPhone Duo?"

iPhone Duo went on sale Friday, and some of your customers are unfolding it this weekend. Your app will run. Whether it looks like it belongs there depends on which SDK you built with and a few old shortcuts in the code.

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Editorial engraving of a bright newsroom where an editor holds a door half open while a producer studies an AI-style answer and its sources on a laptop.

AI & judgmentField note

Blocking AI crawlers doesn't take you out of the answer. It hands the answer to someone else

A Stanford study of AI voting advice in Japan found chatbots leaning hard on whichever sources they could read, while major news sites that blocked AI crawlers barely figured. Businesses face the same trade every time they decide who can read their pages.

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Editorial engraving of a bright candle studio where a maker sorts jars into two groups as her manager prepares a staged change on a laptop.

ReviewsReview

Shopify Rollouts for catalogs, reviewed through one holiday sale

Shopify's Rollouts can now schedule catalog changes, so a Black Friday price list can switch on at midnight and switch off on Monday by itself. It's a real improvement. Just know what it rolls back, what it doesn't, and where your sale prices can linger.

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Editorial engraving of a sunny town square where a city web coordinator shows a resident on a tablet how an old address and a new one lead to the same page.

OperationsField note

When a city moves to .gov, the old address has to keep working

San Rafael launched sanrafael.gov this week and started moving staff email off its old domain. California cities have until 2029 to do the same. The new site is the visible part. What decides whether residents notice is everything still pointing at the old address.

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Editorial engraving of a bookshop back office where the owner writes an email on her laptop while an assistant points to one app on a tablet.

Buying softwareField note

Shopify asked every app developer to act this week. Here's what to ask yours

On October 20, Shopify asked every app developer to tighten security this week. If someone built an app for your store, or you lean on a small app for orders or customers, it's fair to ask what they did. Here's a short, friendly email you can send.

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Editorial engraving of a sunny office mailroom where a receptionist signs for a parcel from a courier during business hours.

CommerceField note

Amazon's business-hour delivery rule: what to fix before October 30

If Amazon told you your Business Hour Delivery Rate was under 90% on September 30, you have until October 30 to get it up, or lose your seller-fulfilled offers to business buyers. Six days isn't long, so start with the packages that missed.

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Editorial engraving of a sunny marina office where a developer reviews an alert on his phone beside a laptop before deciding whether to publish a fix.

ReviewsReview

Replit Monitoring Agent review: a good on-call helper, if you keep the publish switch for yourself

Replit's new Monitoring Agent can spot a production error, work out the cause, write a fix and, if you let it, publish that fix while you sleep. Two of those switches are worth turning on today. The third deserves a harder look.

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Editorial engraving of a tea company mezzanine where an operations lead sorts parcels into three crates while a small printer feeds labels for the easiest pile.

OperationsField note

Shopify Flow can now buy shipping labels by itself. Sort your orders before you switch it on

Buying labels one order at a time is the dullest part of a busy shipping day, and Shopify Flow can now do it for you. The catch is that a label bought for the wrong order costs money and time to undo. Before you build the workflow, sort your orders into three piles.

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Editorial engraving of a sunny restaurant before opening where a web developer hands the owner a key and a folder over a laptop.

Buying softwareField note

Who actually holds your domain? Six questions to answer before you change agencies

Ask most owners who controls their domain and you get a shrug. Many find out who controls their domain on the worst possible day: the site is down, email has stopped, and the login belongs to a developer who left three years ago. Six plain questions will tell you where you stand, and most of them take ten minutes to answer.

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Editorial engraving of a bright toy shop where an assistant scans boxes from a rolling ladder while the manager reviews differences on a tablet at the counter.

OperationsField note

Shopify stock counts now wait for a review. Set up who counts and who approves before November

Most small stores count stock on a clipboard or a spreadsheet, then someone types the numbers back in and hopes. Shopify's October update adds a step that matters more than the scanning: the count waits for a person to review the differences before stock changes. Here's how to set it up before the holidays.

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Editorial engraving of a greenhouse jewelry studio where a photographer captures a real silver ring on a wooden board while glossier images wait on a tablet nearby.

CommerceField note

Etsy now wants one unedited photo on every listing. Pick the rule your marketplace needs

On October 22, Etsy said buyers can't tell which listings involve AI, and that it has become one of the top three things stopping them from shopping more. Its answer is a real photo of the real item on every listing. If you run a marketplace, you'll need a rule of your own soon. Here are three to choose from.

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A good place to begin.

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