[Dev Catch Up # 87] - Kimi K2 Thinking, Windsurf Codemaps, OpenAI's Aardvark & INDQA, Sonic 3, Deepnote,21 Git Commands, TOON, Effective Java Coding, Strix, Amazon's legal notice to perplexity & more!
Bringing devs up to speed on the latest dev news from the trends including, a bunch of exciting developments and articles
Welcome to the 87th edition of DevShorts, Dev Catch Up!
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Must Read
Moonshot AI has introduced Kimi K2 Thinking. It’s an open-source thinking model built as a thinking agent. It can run 200–300 tool calls without human help. It can reason through complex tasks step by step. Read more about Kimi K2 Thinking to learn the full details.
Cognition AI has announced Windsurf Codemaps, structured maps for your code. Codemaps are visual representation of functions, files, and data flows. Every Codemap is a snapshot of your code. It helps you to understand the codebase faster. Read Cognition AI’s Codemap announcement for details.
Cartesia AI has released Sonic 3, a state-of-the-art model for real-time conversation. It delivers natural, human-like speech with laughter and emotion that pull you into the conversation. It supports 42 languages. Check the tweet on Sonic 3 if you’re building voice agents.
Git is home for developers. We use it every day, but many still don’t know its full potential. Neo Kim shared 21 Git commands, from common ones to advanced commands like
git bisect, git stash, and git blame. Read the Substack post on Git commands to level up your workflow.
OSS Highlight of the Week
This week we are featuring Token-Oriented Object Notation (TOON). It’s a compact, human-readable data format built for LLMs. In simple, it’s a JSON for LLM prompts at half the tokens. You can keep using JSON in APIs, but convert to TOON for LLM input. JSON is often verbose, while TOON conveys the same information with 50% fewer tokens. Check the TOON GitHub repo for more details.
Good to know
If you use Claude Code, this Reddit post is worth reading. A developer who used it for six months shares interesting tips to get better results. He has built a hook system that makes Claude Code automatically check skills and instructions before editing. Read the post to learn the Claude Code tips.
I came across this post on 7 Habits of Highly Effective Java Coding. It shares simple but useful tips for writing better code. It talks about understanding what you build, keeping your code clean, testing properly, and reviewing AI-generated code with care. A short and practical read for Java developers.
Hugging Face has released the Smol Training Playbook. It shows what really happens while building large language models. It covers the full training of SmolLM3, and the challenges faced. Read the Smol Training Playbook to learn the secrets behind building world-class LLMs.
AI agents are growing in numbers. Strix are autonomous AI agents that act like real hackers. They run code, find vulnerabilities, and validate them. You can now run tests in CI/CD, to block vulnerabilities before they reach production. Check the Strix Github repo to know more details.
Amazon has sent a legal notice to Perplexity over its shopping agent. Now Perplexity responded with a post titled “Bullying Is Not Innovation” arguing that Amazon is trying to block AI-powered shopping tools. The move has sparked debate about how AI agents should work with online platforms.
OpenAI announced two new updates. Aardvark is a GPT-5 security agent that scans code to find vulnerabilities, rank their severity, and suggest patches. INDQA is a benchmark that tests how well AI systems understand Indian culture and languages. Check OpenAI’s posts for more details.
Notable FYIs
Earlier, we covered how the Gemini API received an additional tool, Google Maps. Now Google Maps itself is getting a Gemini upgrade. You can talk to Maps to identify places, find what’s nearby, or even take a picture and ask questions about what you see. Read Google’s post on Google Map navigation with Gemini.
We all know JDK 25 has been released. For those who don’t have time to go through the full release notes, here’s a short post that quickly walks through what’s new in JDK 25.
Anthropic just posted an update on Code Execution with MCP. It shows how agents can now write code to talk to MCP servers instead of loading every tool upfront. This way, they only pull what they need, making things faster, cheaper, and far more efficient. Worth a read if you’re building or running agent setups.
OpenAI shared a ChatGPT update on X. You can now interrupt long-running queries and add new context without restarting or losing progress. It’s especially handy for deep research or long tasks where the model adapts as you refine your context. Check out the new ChatGPT update.
NotebookLM from Google just got major upgrades. It now supports a 1M-token context window. We can personalize chats with goals and roles. We can resume sessions without losing conversation history. Check Google’s blog post for all the new updates on NotebookLM.
I came across Deepnote. It’s an alternative to Jupyter, but with built-in AI capabilities. It includes a native AI agent, code completion, Git integration, and easy database and API connections. Check out the Deepnote GitHub repo if you find it interesting.
Google just announced the Jules extension for Gemini CLI. It lets you hand off tasks to Jules while you keep working in the CLI. You can fix bugs, run async jobs, or handle background tasks without breaking your flow. Check Google’s blog for the full update.
That’s it from us with this edition. We hope you are going away with a ton of new information. Lastly, share this newsletter with your colleagues and pals if you find it valuable. A subscription to the newsletter will be awesome if you are reading it for the first time.