SimonWillison.net is the long-running blog of Simon Willison, a software engineer, open-source creator, and co-author of the original Django framework. He writes about Python, Django, Datasette, AI tooling, prompt engineering, search, databases, APIs, data journalism, and practical software architecture. The blog includes detailed notes from experiments, conference talks, and real projects. Readers will find clear explanations of topics such as LLM workflows, SQL patterns, data publishing, scraping, deployment, caching, and modern developer tooling. Simon also publishes frequent micro-posts and TIL entries that document small discoveries and tricks from day-to-day engineering work. The tone is practical and research oriented, making the site a valuable resource for anyone interested in serious engineering and open data.
312 articles from this blog
Introduction of datasette-agent-edit 0.1a0, a storage-agnostic plugin providing file-editing tools for Datasette Agent plugins.
Release of micropython-wasm 0.1a2, a Python library for running MicroPython sandboxes using WebAssembly with a new CLI.
Exploring a Python code sandbox using MicroPython compiled to WebAssembly for safe plugin execution.
OpenAI introduces Lockdown Mode to prevent data exfiltration from prompt injection attacks in ChatGPT.
Andreas Kling explains Ladybird browser's shift to no longer accept public pull requests, emphasizing responsibility and code quality.
Analysis of the tension between AI enthusiasts and skeptics in software teams, highlighting the race for innovation versus maintaining reliability.
Uber caps employee AI coding tool spending at $1,500/month per tool to manage costs after overshooting its 2026 AI budget.
Microsoft announces MAI-Thinking-1 and MAI-Code-1-Flash LLMs, with low active parameters and claims of performance, but training data issues remain.
Release of datasette-agent-micropython 0.1a0, using MicroPython in a WASM sandbox for safe code execution in Datasette Agent.
Announcement of micropython-wasm 0.1a1, a Python library for running a MicroPython sandbox using WebAssembly.
A tool that creates a text editor with automatic file attachment for pasted content over 1,000 characters, inspired by Claude's large paste feature.
Simon Willison announces micropython-wasm 0.1a0, a Python library to run MicroPython in a WebAssembly sandbox via wasmtime.
Hackers exploited Meta's AI chatbot to hijack high-profile Instagram accounts by simply asking it to change account recovery details.
Datasette 1.0a32 bugfix release fixes INSERT...RETURNING queries and base_url issues for exploring and publishing data.
Explores the paradox of AI tools boosting productivity while causing attention fragmentation and project overload.
Simon Willison shares an Anthropic revenue definition quote from Karen Kwok's Reuters Breakingviews article.
An overview of how Anthropic contains Claude across products using sandbox techniques like gVisor, Seatbelt, Bubblewrap, and VMs.
A tech professional announces retirement from tech and open source to live offline, citing AI as the last straw.
Running Python ASGI apps in the browser using Pyodide and service workers, enabling serverless web apps.
Datasette 1.0a31 alpha release adds SQL write queries and saved stored queries for database exploration.
