# stop building Agents and start building something that lasts. ![[images/stop-building-Agents.webp]] **Creator:** Jake Van Clief (@JEVanClief) · **Format:** YouTube Short (vertical) · **Published:** 2026-03-09 · **Length:** 1:34 · [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/337Qc9vOxwY) > Caption source: **Whisper speech-to-text** (faster-whisper `small.en`) run on the box. YouTube's English captions failed with an HTTP 429 rate limit and youtube-transcript-api was blocked. A first pass skipped 0:23 to 0:53, so that stretch was re-transcribed separately; the outline covers it. Burned-in captions on the video were used to check wording. One word at 0:39 is unclear: both Whisper and the burned-in caption read "All is doing agents", while the screen shows a Gemini page, so he may mean Google. The video was added from the user's "Summarize" playlist. ## Outline - [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=337Qc9vOxwY&t=0s) Hook: "I get it. Some of you missed the last video, but let me explain it again. Agents are a waste of time. You're building the wrong thing." The on-screen banner reads "Anthropic (the company behind claude code) is literally doing this. They realized Agents only take you so far." ![[images/stop-building-Agents-t0000.webp]] *Opening at his desk, with the banner about Anthropic* - [0:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=337Qc9vOxwY&t=5s) He anticipates the objection that he is "just another AI guru" and moves into his credentials. - [0:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=337Qc9vOxwY&t=10s) **Credentials:** "eight years in the Marine Corps working on cryptography and intelligence." ![[images/stop-building-Agents-t0012.webp]] *A web page describing him as a U.S. Marine Corps veteran* - [0:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=337Qc9vOxwY&t=13s) "Look at that date": over two years ago he was helping schools figure out AI, and his own school hired him to teach professors about it. ![[images/stop-building-Agents-t0018.webp]] *The article's byline date, May 28, 2024* ![[images/stop-building-Agents-t0024.webp]] *Flagler College news article "Uncovering the benefits of AI in education: a Flagler grad's journey"* - [0:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=337Qc9vOxwY&t=25s) He also has a company that implements software and trains "multi-billion dollar companies"; "literally KPMG, the consultants, hired me to consult them." ![[images/stop-building-Agents-t0030.webp]] *A KPMG UK page about an AI strategy workshop* - [0:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=337Qc9vOxwY&t=33s) "But you don't have to listen to me. You can listen to the one company that's not doing the agent thing." He lists who is doing agents: a company at 0:39 (unclear; a Gemini page is on screen), OpenAI, and LangChain, "one of the largest agent companies." ![[images/stop-building-Agents-t0044.webp]] *LangChain's site: "Ship agents that wow"* - [0:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=337Qc9vOxwY&t=45s) "But who doesn't let you build agents? Anthropic, the people behind Claude Code. Why do you think that is?" ![[images/stop-building-Agents-t0050.webp]] *A Claude chat on screen while he names Claude Code* - [0:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=337Qc9vOxwY&t=53s) **His thesis:** Anthropic realized what he and "a lot of engineers on the planet" realized: the best agent is a **markdown file, plus scripts routed through the markdown file**. "As simple as that." ![[images/stop-building-Agents-t0066.webp]] *A markdown instruction file open in a code editor* - [1:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=337Qc9vOxwY&t=67s) These are best organized through "a framework called folders". People take folders for granted, but it took years to make clicking through folders normal for everyone. ![[images/stop-building-Agents-t0072.webp]] *A project folder tree with CLAUDE.md and CONTEXT.md files* - [1:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=337Qc9vOxwY&t=80s) **Caveat:** "I'm not saying this is replacing production flows, I'm saying it's adding a whole lot of value." - [1:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=337Qc9vOxwY&t=85s) Close: zoom out, stop looking at the features in the software, and look at "the goal and job to be done", and you'll change your mind on what he's trying to do. ## Key takeaways - He argues against building elaborate multi-agent systems and for plain **markdown instruction files with scripts**, kept in **folders**. - He presents this as what Anthropic is doing, though Anthropic also ships an agent-building SDK (see the claims check). - He frames the approach as an addition to production workflows, not a replacement. - The real test, he says, is the job to be done, not the feature list of an agent framework. ## Claims check | Claim | Verdict | Evidence | | --- | --- | --- | | He spent "eight years in the Marine Corps working on cryptography and intelligence." | **Partly supported** | Flagler College's 2024 profile says he enlisted in 2015 and served five years of active duty (2015 to 2020) as an Avionics and Cryptographic Technician. It doesn't mention eight years or intelligence work; any reserve time isn't covered there. [Flagler College](https://www.flagler.edu/news-events/news/uncovering-benefits-ai-education-flagler-grads-journey) | | "Over two years ago" he was helping schools with AI. | **Roughly right** | The article on screen is dated May 28, 2024, about 21 months before this Short was published (2026-03-09), so "over two years" is a little generous. Same source. | | His school hired him to teach professors about AI. | **Not verified** | The Flagler article covers his AI work in education; I didn't confirm the teaching detail from the part of the article I read. | | KPMG hired him to consult. | **Not verified** | A KPMG UK page is shown on screen, but I found no independent source naming him. His own claim. | | LangChain is "one of the largest agent companies." | **Reasonable** | LangChain is a widely used agent framework company. I didn't check its size further. | | Anthropic "doesn't let you build agents." | **Inaccurate** | Anthropic released the Claude Agent SDK (formerly the Claude Code SDK) in September 2025 specifically for building agents. [Anthropic: Enabling Claude Code to work more autonomously](https://www.anthropic.com/news/enabling-claude-code-to-work-more-autonomously), [Agent SDK overview](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/agent-sdk/overview) | | The best agent is a markdown file with scripts routed through it, organized in folders, and Anthropic "is literally doing this." | **Opinion; the Anthropic part is supported** | Anthropic's Agent Skills (October 16, 2025) are folders holding a `SKILL.md` file of instructions plus optional scripts and resources that the agent loads when relevant. [Anthropic engineering post](https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/equipping-agents-for-the-real-world-with-agent-skills), [Claude blog: Introducing Agent Skills](https://claude.com/blog/skills) | ## Tutorial: the markdown-plus-scripts pattern He doesn't walk through a setup in this Short. The closest documented version of what he describes is Anthropic's skill folder format: 1. Make a folder named after the task, for example `brand-guidelines/`. 2. Put a `SKILL.md` file in it. It starts with YAML frontmatter that has a `name` and a `description` (the description tells the agent when to use it), followed by the instructions in markdown. 3. Add optional subfolders: `scripts/` for code the agent runs, `references/` for documents it reads only when a step calls for them, and `assets/` for templates. 4. In `SKILL.md`, mention each extra file at the step where it should be used, so the agent opens it only then. Source: [Claude docs: Create custom skills](https://claude.com/docs/skills/how-to). See also his earlier Short [[What is a real Second Brain]] on organizing markdown files into a graph of nodes and edges. ## Things mentioned ### Organizations and people - **U.S. Marine Corps**: his military service - **Flagler College**: his school; its May 28, 2024 news article about him - **KPMG** (KPMG UK page shown): a company he says hired him to consult - **Google Gemini** (on screen at 0:39), **OpenAI**, **LangChain**: named or shown as companies "doing agents" - **Anthropic** and **Claude Code**: presented as the company not doing agents ### Concepts and tools - **AI agents** and agent frameworks - **Markdown files** with **scripts** routed through them - **Folders** as an organizing framework - `CLAUDE.md` and `CONTEXT.md` files (on screen at 1:06 to 1:12) - **Job to be done**: judging tools by the goal rather than by features ## Biographies ### Jake Van Clief Creator of the YouTube channel **Jake Van Clief** (@JEVanClief, about 69.1K subscribers when this note was made). Flagler College's 2024 profile says he enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2015 and served as an Avionics and Cryptographic Technician through 2020, then studied political science at Flagler with a Philosophy and Religion minor, and started Van Clief Media LLC in 2022. He runs the Clief Notes Skool community and created the Interpretable Context Methodology (ICM), which uses numbered folders and markdown context in place of multi-agent orchestration. His claims about consulting for KPMG and training multi-billion-dollar companies are his own. (Sources: the video; [Flagler College](https://www.flagler.edu/news-events/news/uncovering-benefits-ai-education-flagler-grads-journey); [[What is a real Second Brain]].) ### Anthropic AI company that makes the Claude models and Claude Code, its agentic coding tool. It publishes both the Claude Agent SDK for building agents and the Agent Skills format of instruction folders. (Sources: the Anthropic pages linked above.)