From personal AI experiments to shared tools

Drupal contributor Dries Buytaert presented a series of AI experiments to the Drupal AI Learners Club on April 2025, including Drupal Digests, a tool that uses AI to summarize developments across Drupal Core, Drupal CMS, Drupal Canvas, and the Drupal AI initiative, and AI-generated Rector rules that automate API upgrades. Buytaert described his approach of building personal AI tools and publishing those that prove useful beyond his own work.

In April 2025, I published Claude Code meets Drupal https://dri.es/claude-code-meets-drupal , my first public experiment with an AI coding agent. I have been experimenting with coding agents ever since, often by building tools to solve problems in my own work. Last week, I joined the Drupal AI Learners Club https://www.drupal.org/about/initiatives/ai/drupal-ai-learners-club to discuss several experiments I had already published. Angie Byron https://www.drupal.org/u/webchick started the club and runs it with co-organizer Amber Himes Matz https://www.drupal.org/u/amber-himes-matz . It gives people in the Drupal community a place to show how they are using AI and talk honestly about what works and what does not. I spent an hour walking through the experiments, starting with Drupal Digests https://dri.es/a-better-way-to-follow-drupal-development , a tool that uses AI to summarize key developments across Drupal Core, Drupal CMS, Drupal Canvas, and the Drupal AI initiative. Drupal Digests led to another experiment: AI-generated Rector rules https://dri.es/ai-generated-rector-rules-for-drupal . When a Drupal Core change deprecates an API, Drupal Digests analyzes the issue and code changes and generates a rule that can automate the corresponding upgrade in other Drupal projects. I also showed an API catalog https://dri.es/helping-agents-discover-my-site-search-with-an-api-catalog that helps AI agents discover my website's search API. These are only some of my AI experiments. Most begin as tools I build for myself, and many never go any further. When one seems useful beyond my own work, I publish it so others can try it and improve it. Once it is public, we can see whether people use it and want to help improve it. If they do, it may eventually become a community project. If not, that is useful to know too. The recording goes into much more detail, with demonstrations of the tools and questions from the group. You can watch it below.