Library
News, white papers, articles, and resources from our team on federal technology, AI, data security, and delivering for our clients.
Governance First
ACC3's internal work points to the need for a governed delivery path once an Alchemist AI Pro™ package has been reviewed. In one Alchemy SDLC™ effort, feature-level links remained intact throughout delivery. A separate human-led project kept no comparable record.
Journey Through Alchemy SDLC™ (Part 2): Read the Output
Final Mile setup, early mistakes, and learning to pay attention to what the tools—and my XO (the first officer)—are actually telling me.
The Estimate Ships With the Build
How Alchemist AI Pro™ turns every estimate into a reproducible, version-controlled computation — with the AI Pro CRM rebuild as the worked example, receipts included.
Preserving Expertise, Expanding Opportunity
An APEX Accelerator's greatest asset is not its technology, it is the experience and judgment of the counselors who help businesses pursue government contracting opportunities. As demand for assistance grows, the challenge is making sure that expertise can be shared across a center, scaled through staff turnover, and carried into the next generation of program administrators.
Journey Through Alchemy SDLC (Part 1): Beginning the Journey
Follow the beginning of my journey learning Alchemy SDLC through hands-on experience, real challenges, unfamiliar tools, and the uncertainty that comes with starting something new, without needing to have all the answers.
Beyond Code Generation: Understanding the System Software Must Survive Inside
AI can produce code quickly, but program leaders and delivery teams still need a durable record of why a system exists, what it enforces, what it connects to, and how a change will be verified. Alchemist AI Pro™ helps preserve that operational context as reviewable requirements and acceptance evidence before it disappears into implementation.
CMMC 2.0: What Changed on July 13, 2026
On July 13, 2026, the Department of War paused the requirement for a CMMC Level 2 third-party audit to ease compliance costs for small and mid-sized defense contractors. The underlying NIST SP 800-171 controls, DFARS reporting duties, and SPRS score obligations remain fully in force.
The Lifecycle Evidence Boundary
AI-assisted delivery needs an approved record that remains usable after the original prompt and conversation are gone. The lifecycle evidence boundary identifies which evidence may govern the work, who approved it, and how it remains traceable through delivery and sustainment.
Leapfrogging the Pyramid
The collapse of the consulting pyramid is not a loss for new talent, it is the removal of a gate that rationed expertise to the lucky few. Alchemy SDLC™ hands newcomers a master's teaching as day-one leverage, so they produce senior-level outcomes immediately while building real judgment far faster than the old apprenticeship ever allowed.
From Prompt to Production: Why AI Software Delivery Needs a Full SDLC
AI coding assistants can turn a prompt into working code very quickly, but they do not replace clear requirements, architecture rules, test results, human approval, deployment controls, or long-term system support. Alchemy SDLC™ connects requirements, AI-orchestrated development, human review, UAT, deployment, and future evolution into one traceable chain.
Fluent but Fragile
Generative AI can produce polished writing before the user fully understands the source material, quietly omitting exceptions or hiding contradictions while sounding more certain than the evidence supports. This paper argues that AI-assisted work must stay connected to reviewable sources and a named owner who can explain and defend the result, and shows how Alchemy SDLC™ builds that discipline directly into delivery.
From Acceptance Criteria to Automated Assurance
Automated testing is often an afterthought, translated and retranslated across product owners, testers, and automation engineers until the original intent drifts from what actually gets verified. Alchemy SDLC™ turns acceptance criteria generated during Alchemist AI Pro™'s elaboration process into structured test definitions a Playwright harness can consume directly, keeping automated evidence traceable back to the approved requirement.