My AI agent could do useful work. The little things that made it frustrating to use kept getting in the way.

While setting up Milo, my Hermes agent, I kept running into friction: long silences, progress updates that just said “Python,” and no easy way to stop a long answer or get the agent into a conversation.

Each annoyance became one small fix: more useful progress updates, a Stop button, a Join button. The interaction got smooth enough that I wanted to use it regularly.

In this episode:

• Finding the little things that make you avoid using a tool
• Turning vague status messages into useful, sometimes funny updates
• Solving one friction point at a time
• Why your simplest useful fix may look different from mine

Try this with your own agent: “Here's the problem I'm trying to solve. What's the simplest fix?”

Less Miserable Tech is a podcast and field journal about real workflows: where they get stuck, what small fixes actually help, and how to make systems fit the people doing the work.

Website: https://lessmiserabletech.com/

Watch, listen and read transcripts: https://podcast.lessmiserabletech.com/