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Shownotes
Ryan Nystrom is a software engineer at Notion. He joined in December 2024 after Notion acquired Campsite, the team communication platform he co-founded with Brian Lovin. At Notion, he’s been a core builder of Notion AI and the Custom Agents feature launched in February 2026. He manages a team of six to seven engineers while still writing code himself, currently running Project Afterburner, a push to cut Notion’s CI time to a quarter of its current duration.
What you’ll learn:
• How to build a Notion AI custom agent that auto-generates your daily standup pre-read by pulling from Slack, GitHub, Honeycomb metrics, and yesterday’s meeting transcript
• How to configure subagents and MCP integrations within Notion AI
• How Notion’s internal “Boxy” system lets engineers @mention Codex from within Notion comments and get a full pull request with screenshots in 20 minutes
• The spec-first development workflow: dictate an idea into Whisper, have Codex format it as a proper spec, commit it to the repo, and let the agent implement and verify it autonomously
• Why fast CI is absolutely critical in the age of AI coding agents
• How to prompt AI coding agents to defend their reasoning under pushback
• Why engineering managers and even senior executives should keep writing code
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Brought to you by:
WorkOS (workos.com/?utm_source=lennys_howiai&utm_m…)—Make your app enterprise-ready today
Orkes (orkes.io)—The enterprise platform for reliable applications and agentic workflows
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In this episode, we cover:
() Introduction to Ryan Nystrom
() How AI has upended 12+ years of the same working routine
() Project Afterburner: Notion’s push to cut CI time to a quarter
() Why high-frequency, high-quality meetings beat lower-frequency standups
() How automated context surfaces every engineer’s work equally
() Why cutting meeting prep is a burnout protection mechanism
() The case for engineering managers writing code
() Inside “Boxy”: Notion’s internal VM-based background agent system
() Old World vs. New World code review
() Prompting Codex from Notion comments
() The emotions around code review
() Quick recap
() Spec-first development: writing and checking agent specs into the repo
() The spec as changelog: version control for how a feature actually works
() How engineers’ roles are evolving
() Lightning round
() Where to find Ryan
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Tools referenced:
• Notion AI: notion.com/product/ai
• Notion Custom Agents: notion.com/blog/introducing-custom-agents
• Codex (OpenAI): openai.com/codex
• Claude Code (Anthropic): claude.ai/code
• Honeycomb (observability + MCP): honeycomb.io
• Whisper (OpenAI voice transcription): openai.com/research/whisper
• Slack: slack.com
• GitHub: github.com
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Other references:
• How Stripe built “minions”—AI coding agents that ship 1,300 PRs weekly from Slack reactions | Steve Kaliski (Stripe): chatprd.ai/how-i-ai/stripes-ai-minions-ship-13…
• Notion 3.3 Custom Agents launch (February 24, 2026): notion.com/releases/2026-02-24
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Where to find Ryan Nystrom:
X: x.com/ryannystrom
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ryannystrom
GitHub: github.com/rnystrom
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Where to find Claire Vo:
ChatPRD: chatprd.ai
Website: clairevo.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/clairevo
X: x.com/clairevo
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Production and marketing by penname.co. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email jordan@penname.co.
