How This Non-Technical Founder Used AI Agents to Become an Open Source Legend | Matt Van Horn
How Matt built the #1 trending repo on GitHub with 44K stars and lets his agents use any website or app despite not knowing how to code
Dear subscribers,
Today, I want to share a new episode with Matt Van Horn.
Matt doesn’t have a CS degree, know how to code, or even read the plans that AI writes. Despite this, he’s built an incredible open source track record with projects like last30days (#1 trending on GitHub with 44K+ stars) and Printing Press (a tool that lets agents use any website or app). Matt has been a huge inspiration for my AI builder journey, and I think you’ll feel the same after watching our conversation.
Watch now on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify.
Matt and I talked about:
(00:00) "I don't read code and the plans are for AI"
(01:19) Compound Engineering: Matt’s go-to agentic loop
(07:07) How Matt builds without a CS degree or reading code
(11:18) Printing Press: Turning any website into an agent CLI
(15:38) How Printing Press finds hidden APIs and GitHub projects
(22:44) Why CLI + skill beats MCP for agent workflows
(32:49) How Matt contributes to Python, Go, and other top repos
(44:28) Why Matt is still afraid to launch finished projects
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Top 10 takeaways I learned from this episode
Use Printing Press to give your AI access to almost any website or app. Matt open sourced Printing Press to let anyone generate a CLI (command line interface) for any website or app. It works by researching docs, finding niche GitHub repos, and sniffing hidden API requests, so agents can use sites like Google Flights, Suno, OpenArt, and more.
If you’re non-technical, use Compound Engineering skills to build. Compound Engineering is a set of AI coding skills that lets anyone build with AI in a more structured way. Matt’s go-to skills include:
/ce-plan to research the codebase, edge cases, and implementation path.
/ce-work to execute the plan while following the project’s patterns.
/ce-brainstorm to think through the feature and produce a requirements doc.
/lfg to run the full loop from planning to implementation to PR.
To install it, point your favorite coding agent (e.g., Codex / Claude Code) at this link: