Over the years, I've built dozens of small, site-specific Drupal modules. None of them live on Drupal.org.
It makes me wonder: how many modules like that exist across the Drupal ecosystem? I'm guessing a lot.
For example, I recently open-sourced the content of this blog by exporting my posts as Markdown files and publishing them on GitHub. To do that, I built two custom Drupal modules with Claude Code: one that converts HTML to Markdown, and another that exports content as YAML with Markdown.
Both modules embed architectural choices and algorithms I explicitly described to Claude Code. Both have unit tests and have been used in production. But both only work for my site.
They're built around my specific content model and field names. For example, my export module expects fields like field_summary and field_image to exist. I'd love to contribute them to Drupal.org, but turning site-specific code into something reusable can be a lot of work.
On Drupal.org, contributed modules are expected to work for everyone. That means abstracting away my content model, adding configuration options I'll never use, handling edge cases I'll never hit, and documenting setups I haven't tested.
There is a "generalization tax": the cost of making code flexible enough for every possible site. Drupal has always had a strong culture of contribution, but this tax has kept a lot of useful code private. My blog alone has ten custom modules that will probably never make it to Drupal.org under the current model.
Generalization work is extremely valuable, and the maintainers who do it deserve a lot of credit. But it can be a high bar, and a lot of useful code never clears it.
That made me wonder: what if we had a different category of contributed code on Drupal.org?
Let's call them "adaptable modules", though the name matters less than the idea.
The concept is simple: tested, working code that solves a real problem for a real site, shared explicitly as a starting point. You don't install these modules. You certainly don't expect them to work out of the box. Instead, an AI adapts the code for you by reading it and understanding the design decisions embedded in it. Or a human can do the same.
In practice, that might mean pointing Claude Code at my Markdown export module and prompting: "I need something like this, but my site uses Paragraphs instead of a regular Body field". Or: "I store images in a media field instead of an image field". The AI reads the code, understands the approach, and generates a version tailored to your setup.
This workflow made less sense when humans had to do all the adaptation. But AI changes the economics. AI is good at reading code, understanding what it does, and reshaping it for a new context. The mechanical work of adaptation is becoming both cheap and reliable.
What matters are the design decisions embedded in the code: the architecture, the algorithms, the trade-offs. Those came from me, a human. There are worth sharing, even if AI handles the mechanical adaptation.
This aligns with where engineering is heading. As developers, we'll spend less time on syntax and boilerplate, and more time on understanding problems, making architectural choices, and weighing trade-offs. Our craft is shifting from writing code to shaping code. And orchestrating the AI agents that writes it. Adaptable modules fit that future.
Modules that work for everyone are still important. Drupal's success will always depend on them. But maybe they're not the only kind worth sharing. The traditional contribution model, generalizing everything for everyone, makes less sense for smaller utility modules when AI can generate context-specific code on demand.
Opinionated, site-specific modules have always lived in private repositories. What is new is that AI makes them worth sharing. Code that only works for my site becomes a useful starting point when AI can adapt it to yours.
I created an issue on Drupal.org to explore this further. I'd love to hear what you think.
(Thanks to phenaproxima, Tim Lehnen, Gábor Hojtsy and Wim Leers for reviewing my draft.)
18 Dec 2025 9:31am GMT
At the end of November I had the privilege of going to the first ever Oaisys AI Practitioners conference in Pune, India. I wanted to share some of the memories and moments from that event.
Jamie Abrahams and I were invited to both hold sessions and lead the contribution day. It was my first time in India and since the event itself was new as well, it was hard to know what to expect. But whatever my expectations could have been, it would have surpassed it.
We arrived two days early to get over jetlag and also meet some people before the event. On the first evening when we arrived we went to dinner with Dipen Chaudhary, CEO and Piyuesh Kumar, Director of technology, both from QED42. QED42 were the main organisers of the event and had done a fantastic job putting it all together. It was great to meet them a bit before the event started and let me tell you - Indian food in Germany is not the same thing as Indian food in India. It was absolutely delicious.
The next day we met up with Pritam Prasun, founder of OpenSense Labs and CEO of RAIL. We discussed a lot about the Drupal ecosystem, about Indian culture vs western culture, but also about the RAIL project and how it can be integrated with the AI module to make the ecosystem more secure.
We also got to visit the offices of QED42 which was a great experience. The team there was super friendly and it was nice to see some faces that you had seen on video calls or Slack channels in real life.
The conference itself started on the 29th of November in the ICC Trade Tower in Pune. When I walked in the first day, I was greeted right away by people I knew from the Drupal community, but also people that had worked with the AI module or were interested in AI in general. It was a great feeling to be surrounded by so many like-minded people.
It was a great feeling to be surrounded by so many like-minded people.
Because of managing the contribution room, I only attended two sessions during the conference - Jamie's introductory session, which was always great and very well received and the end session by Piyush about How LLMs learn, which I learned myself from as well.
Meeting prominent contributors to the Drupal AI ecosystem
The highlight of the conference was to meet some of the most prominent contributors to the AI ecosystem. Specifically Prabhavathi Vanipenta and Anjali Prasannan that both have been doing amazing work on the AI module, and Akhil Babu, who has been working on the agents system in Drupal, and built many of the agents you see in Canvas. It was truly a blessing to meet them in person and thank them for all their contributions.
Prashant Chauhan, wasn't there in person, but Prabha and Anjali made sure that I got to thank him over a video call. The four of them have worked and finished over 200 issues on the AI module, which is just mind-blowing.
Well thought through ideas of how AI can be used to improve their workflows, businesses and lives
Another thing that was mind-blowing was the level of interest, energy and enthusiasm around AI in general in the contribution room. People were building the craziest things and had really thought through what and how AI can be used to improve their workflows, businesses and lives. It was inspiring to see so many people passionate about the same thing as you. I have never seen anything like it before, in the events I have attended.
Another thing that was mind-blowing was the level of interest, energy and enthusiasm around AI in general in the contribution room
The Browser AI CKEditor for instance is a project that was thought through and built during the contribution day.
A lot of discussion led directly to new issues in the Drupal AI module issue queue, that some of the people attending are working on now.
Because of family commitments I couldn't stay longer than four days, but those four days were really great. I want to thank Dipen, Piyuesh and the whole QED42 team for organising such a fantastic event and being such great hosts. A special thanks as well to Priyanka Jeph, who organized a lot of the event.
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Last February, we released the first beta of jQuery 4.0.0. We're now ready to release a second, and we expect a release candidate to come soon™. This release comes with a major rewrite to jQuery's testing infrastructure, which removed all deprecated or under-supported dependencies. But the main change that warranted a second beta was a … Continue reading →
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When it comes to crafting an article, the headline is crucial for grabbing the reader's attention and enticing them to read further. In this post, I'll explore the 7 types of article headlines and provide examples for each using the subjects of product management, user experience design, and search engine optimization. 1. The Know-it-All The […]
The post 7 Types of Article Headlines: Craft the Perfect Title Every Time first appeared on Smiley Cat.
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Product management is one of the most exciting and rewarding careers in the tech world. But it's also one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented. There are many myths and misconceptions that cloud the reality of what product managers do, how they do it, and what skills they need to succeed. In this blog post, […]
The post 5 Product Management Myths You Need to Stop Believing first appeared on Smiley Cat.
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The role of a product manager is crucial to the success of any product. They are responsible for managing the entire product life cycle, from conceptualization to launch and beyond. A product manager must possess a unique blend of skills and qualities to be effective in their role. Strong strategic thinking A product manager must […]
The post The Key Strengths of the Best Product Managers first appeared on Smiley Cat.
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