I Lost 47 Nights to AI-Generated Bugs.
So I Fixed Agentic Programming Forever.
Hi, I'm Abe Burnett. Principal AI Data Scientist who's shipped $10M+ in production ML and data science. And the guy who nearly lost his mind trying to use AI for real work. Until I built FlowState.
The Project That Almost Broke Me
(And Created FlowState)
Six months ago, I had a crazy idea: Inkforge.
Git for storytellers. A version-controlled memory system for fiction writers. Characters, timelines, magic systems, all interconnected. Ask "Where did I define how travel magic works?" and get instant answers with receipts. Except even better: you shouldn't need to ask--the software, powered by AI, should anticipate your need and proactively display what you need to know, when you need to know it.
Ambitious? Sure.
Doable? Absolutely.
With AI assistance? Should've been easy.
Reality? I wanted to throw my laptop out the window. Daily.
- Monday: Claude writes beautiful knowledge graph code
- Tuesday: Can't remember why Claude made those choices
- Wednesday: Cursor refactors everything, breaks the graph
- Thursday: Fixing bugs I don't understand
- Friday: Starting over from scratch
- Saturday: Questioning my career choices
- Sunday: "Maybe I should just write this manually"
When I was Senior Data Scientist at Pluralsight, I built the Technology Index—processing 23 billion data points monthly, reaching 82 million readers.
But I couldn't get AI to write reliable code.
The problem wasn't the AI.
The problem was no structure.
2 AM. Coffee number six. Inkforge broken again. Still.
I realized: I kept making the same mistakes.
No evidence trails. No safety checks. No rollback plan.
Just vibes and prayer.
What if I could create a system that:
- Forced AI to follow MY patterns
- Caught mistakes before production
- Created evidence for every decision
- Let me rollback instantly when things went wrong
I opened a new document: FLOWSTATE-NOTES.md
By sunrise, I had the first version.
By the next week, Inkforge was shipping features daily.
By the next month, colleagues were begging for my "secret."
FlowState AI was born from pain.
Real pain. My pain.
Maybe your pain too.
Why Listen to Me About AI + Code?
I'm not a guru. I'm a practitioner.
- Architect production ML/data science systems for insurance operations
- Modernize actuarial pipelines (60% runtime reduction)
- Deploy GenAI for claims processing (89% F1 score)
- Fix broken legacy systems others gave up on
- Pluralsight Technology Index
- • 23 billion data points monthly
- • 850+ technologies tracked
- • 82 million readers reached
- • 311 press mentions
- Market Intelligence Products
- • Led team of 5 engineers
- • 73% increase in data coverage
- • 40% reduction in errors
"Knowing when sophisticated AI isn't the solution."
This is why FlowState works.
It's not about complex frameworks.
It's about simple structure that prevents chaos.
I'm not a 10x engineer.
I'm a data scientist.
Which effectively makes me a 1x engineer...who ships 10x more with AI.
Because I have structure.
What I Believe About AI-Assisted Development
Controversial opinions I'll die on:
Every time you let AI run wild without gates, you're gambling with your reputation. Stop it.
FlowState is markdown files with coordinated prompts--essentially like an OS upgrade...for your AI. Not because I couldn't build more. Because more would be worse. Because AI needs the right amount of governance--no more, no less.
I don't care if your code works. Can you explain WHY it works? Can you prove it won't break? Can you fix it at 2 AM?
With FlowState AI you can.
The future belongs to those who can direct AI, not those who blindly trust it. FlowState makes you an orchestrator.
You're not "behind." You're not "slow." You're correctly identifying that raw AI is dangerous. The solution isn't to avoid it. It's to structure it.
From My Pain to Your Solution
Building Inkforge with AI was like doing surgery with a chainsaw. Powerful? Yes. Precise? Hell no.
I needed:
- Ways to track what AI changed
- Gates to catch all manner of AI nonsense
- Rollback for when things exploded
- Evidence for why decisions were made
- Structure to prevent chaos
So I built them. For myself.
Not as a product. As survival tools.
"Abe, you did this in FOUR days??? Can you show me some your FlowState framework? Mind if I put some time on your calendar--like today?"
— Current colleague at Vantage Risk
I shared my system.
He told me I needed to share it with the rest of our team. Maybe the whole company.
That's when I realized:
Everyone is fighting the same battle.
Everyone needs the same structure.
Everyone deserves to ship without fear.
Proof: How FlowState Saved Inkforge
- 6 months of false starts
- 800+ hours lost to AI chaos
- 3 complete rewrites
- Architecture changed weekly
- My wife questioned my sanity
- Shipping features in hours
- Clean, maintainable codebase
- Version control that makes sense
- AI assists without destroying
- My wife sees me at dinner again
It's Git for fiction writers. Your story becomes a living, versioned knowledge base. Characters, places, magic systems, timelines—all interconnected and queryable.
"Where did my protagonist learn to sword fight?"
*Instant answer with page references*
"Have I already paid off that prophecy?"
*Complete timeline with all mentions*
Complex? Insanely.
Buildable without AI? No chance.
Buildable with unstructured AI? Nearly killed me.
Buildable with FlowState? Shipping weekly.
If FlowState can tame a project as complex as Inkforge—with its knowledge graphs, version control, plain-English queries, and contradiction detection—imagine what it can do for your "simple" CRUD app or data pipeline.
You don't need FlowState for easy projects.
You need it for the ones that matter.
The ones that could make or break your career.
The ones you're scared to trust AI with.
Those are the ones FlowState was built for.
Join Me in Shipping Without Fear
Look, I could have kept FlowState to myself.
Continued shipping faster than my peers.
Kept my "secret weapon" secret.
Let everyone else struggle.
But here's the thing:
I remember the pain.
The 2 AM debugging sessions.
The "I broke production" shame.
The "maybe I'm not cut out for AI" thoughts.
Nobody should code in fear.
Nobody should lose weekends to AI chaos.
Nobody should feel left behind.
FlowState isn't perfect.
It won't write code for you.
It won't make you a 10x engineer overnight.
But it WILL:
- Give you structure in the chaos
- Catch mistakes before they ship
- Build evidence for your decisions
- Let you sleep through deployments
- Make you confident with AI
Because it did all that for me.
And I'm excited to hear what it has done for you.
- Choose your edition (DS, SE, or Bundle)
- Download FlowState (it's just a simple prompt that upgrades your AI)
- Run your first structured AI session
- Ship something today
- Email me your first win (I read every one)
I'm not selling you theory.
I'm sharing what saved my sanity.
And maybe my career.
Ready to stop fighting AI and start flowing?
P.S. — I still use FlowState every single day. For Inkforge. For my day job at Vantage. For side projects. Once you feel the difference between chaos and structure, you'll never go back.
P.P.S. — Yes, I really do read every success story email. abe@flowstateai.dev. Tell me what you ship. The best part of building FlowState isn't the revenue. It's hearing "I finally shipped the thing I was scared to build."
Want to Connect?
Best for: Success stories, questions, bug reports
Founders Discord #office-hours channel
Come with questions, leave with answers
If you're struggling with AI-assisted development, reach out. Even if you haven't bought FlowState. I remember the pain. Sometimes you just need someone to say "you're not crazy."
abe@flowstateai.dev
Subject: "Help, I'm drowning in AI chaos"
I'll respond within 24 hours.
