AI Summary
5 min readRyan Nystrom, an engineering manager at Notion who manages a small team and writes code, shares how AI tools have reshaped his workflows. He demonstrates automating stand-ups, using background agents for code changes, and implementing spec-driven development in a large codebase, all while emphasizing faster CI as a prerequisite for agentic work.
Automating Stand-ups with Custom Agents
Nystrom's team runs daily stand-ups but eliminates manual prep through a Notion AI custom agent called "Hot Potato," triggered at 9 a.m. It scans the past 24 hours of Slack channels, closed Notion tasks, merged pull requests, Honeycomb metrics via MCP (managed compute provider), and the previous day's meeting transcript. The agent compiles a brief, fun pre-read in a standardized template covering CI speeds, decisions, progress, bugs, feedback, open questions, and risks. This populates a shared meeting page, which the team reviews on video calls.
The result is meetings focused on problems, wins, and next steps rather than rote updates. It surfaces details like a 13% test improvement from a mock server fix, prompting discussion. Nystrom notes this democratizes input from quieter team members and reduces context-switching tedium—saving about 20 minutes daily while protecting against burnout. Managers can code until the meeting starts, as the agent handles synthesis without complaint.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:04) **Intro Banter on AI Workflows** - Ryan shares rapid spec-to-code process using Whisper, Codex, and Markdown.
- 2 (01:13) **Episode Intro and Project Overview** - Claire introduces Ryan's Notion AI demos for stand-ups, background agents, and spec-driven dev.
- 3 (02:49) **AI's Impact on Daily Work** - Ryan describes upending 12+ years of routines with frequent tool changes.
- 4 (04:30) **Team Management with Notion AI** - Manages 6-7 engineers on fast AI-pilled projects like CI optimization.
- 5 (06:42) **Automated Daily Stand-Ups** - Custom agent generates pre-reads from Slack, tasks, PRs, transcripts, metrics.
- 6 (08:50) **High-Quality Meeting Benefits** - Detailed pre-reads spark discussions, surface hidden wins like 13% test improvements.
- 7 (10:57) **Reducing Burnout via Automations** - Frees time from prep, lets managers code until meetings start.
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Show Notes
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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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Introduction to Ryan Nystrom
(02:48) How AI has upended 12+ years of the same working routine
(04:30) Project Afterburner: Notion’s push to cut CI time to a quarter
(09:00) Why high-frequency, high-quality meetings beat lower-frequency standups
(11:10) How automated context surfaces every engineer’s work equally
(12:15) Why cutting meeting prep is a burnout protection mechanism
(14:26) The case for engineering managers writing code
(16:13) Inside “Boxy”: Notion’s internal VM-based background agent system
(20:30) Old World vs. New World code review
(24:51) Prompting Codex from Notion comments
(29:20) The emotions around code review
(31:01) Quick recap
(32:00) Spec-first development: writing and checking agent specs into the repo
(35:10) The spec as changelog: version control for how a feature actually works
(37:53) How engineers’ roles are evolving
(39:00) Lightning round
(45:21) Where to find Ryan
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Tools referenced:
• Notion AI: https://www.notion.com/product/ai
• Notion Custom Agents: <
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