Overview
Simon Willison has added a new “beats” feature to his blog that consolidates his online activity from multiple platforms into a single timeline. This integration pulls in content from five different sources including GitHub releases, TIL posts, museum content, tools, and research projects, creating a unified view of his work across the web.
Key Points
- Created five types of “beats” that pull content from different platforms - eliminating the need to check multiple sites to follow his work
- Built custom integrations for GitHub releases, TIL blog, museums site, tools, and research projects - turning scattered online activity into a cohesive content stream
- Used AI coding agents (Claude Code) to handle the technical implementation - completing most of the feature in a single morning while multitasking
- Designed beats as inline timeline entries with badges that appear across homepage, search, and archive pages - creating consistent discovery of his broader work
- Implemented pragmatic solutions like regex parsing for unstructured data sources - prioritizing functionality over perfect architecture when controlling both source and destination