Talking Drupal

How should development teams adopt AI without sacrificing code quality or collaboration? In this Talking Drupal Cafe, Stephen Cross is joined by Mike Miles and Jim Birch to discuss practical strategies for integrating AI into Drupal development teams. They explore AI coding assistants, team policies, code review, agent workflows, governance, and real-world lessons from using tools like Claude Code and GitHub Copilot in production environments.
For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/cafe020
Topics
Why AI Matters Now
Team Introductions
From Experiments to Workflows
Standards and Guardrails
Skills and Automation Examples
Taming Verbose AI Code
Adoption and Tool Choices
Governance and Training
Measuring Productivity Gains
Keeping Up Without FOMO
AI for Editors and Site Features
Red Teaming and AI Security
Jim Birch
Jim Birch is Director of Engineering and AI Practice Lead at Kanopi Studios, where he leads engineering teams and oversees the company's responsible adoption of AI. Jim is also a Drupal CMS committer, and Recipes Initiative Coordinator, and is a Google Cloud Certified Generative AI Leader.
Michael Miles
Mike Miles is a technical leader and speaker with more than 20 years of experience in web engineering, open-source development, and digital platform delivery. As the Director of Web Development at MIT Sloan, he leads the team responsible for the development, maintenance, and growth of the school's public digital properties.
Mike regularly speaks at technical conferences on topics including modern web development, Drupal, technical leadership, testing, delivery practices, and practical AI adoption. He is also one of the organizers of New England Drupal Camp.
Stephen Cross
Stephen Cross has been a Drupal developer for over 20 years and founded Talking Drupal in 2013. As founder of Second Signal Media, he combines his passion for open source and media production to share conversations that help the Drupal community learn and grow.
Guests
Michael Miles - mikemiles86
Jim Birch - thejimbirch
Stephen Cross - stephencross
Resources
Courses
https://anthropic.skilljar.com/
https://academy.openai.com/pages/courses
Skills
https://kanopi.github.io/cms-cultivator/
https://kanopi.github.io/delivery-record/

Today we are talking about Drupito, its Business model, and Marketplaces with guest Ashraf Abed. We'll also cover Generate (Social Media) Image as our module of the week.
For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/563
Topics
Meet Drupalito and the Mission
Platform Layers and Roadmap
Pricing and New Markets
Marketplace Success Stories
Exportability and Vendor Lock In
Growing the Drupal Ecosystem
Derivatives and Recurring Revenue
Rebuilding on Drupedo
Funding Drupal Association
Global Community Check In
Migrating Sites to Drupedo
Marketplace Vision Shift
Maintenance and Incentives
Safe Updates Blue Green
Testing Mindset for Templates
Official Marketplace Collaboration
Agency Revenue and Partnerships
Niche Derivatives and Pricing
Launch Plans and Vetting
Resources
Code that ships
Hosts
Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Ashraf Abed - drupito.com ashrafabed
Avi Schwab - froboy.org froboy
MOTW
Correspondent
Avi Schwab - froboy.org froboy
Brief description: Have you ever wanted Drupal to generate dynamic social media images using tokenized node data, similar to the share images on GitHub repos or Reddit threads? There's a module for that

Module name/project name: Generate (Social Media) Image

Brief history How old: Created by tfranz of Germany on 22 April 2022
Versions available: 1.x-dev, 2.0.0-beta2, published a few weeks ago by our own Martin Anderson-Clutz

Maintainership Minimally (although now slightly more actively) maintained
No Security coverage (yet)
Passing GitLab CI tests
Well fleshed out README for docs
Number of open issues: 8 open issues, 0 of which are bugs against the current branch, but there are lots of feature requests

Usage stats: 1 site reports using this module

Module features and usage GSMI requires an image style that uses a "Text Overlay" effect — this comes from the Image Effects module and lets you burn tokenized (or static) text onto an image. Normally, when Drupal generates an image style derivative, there's no entity in scope — it's just processing a file — so a token like [node:title] would resolve to nothing. GSMI's real contribution is the glue: when it builds a derivative for a specific node, it swaps in the node-resolved text before generating the image. That's what makes entity-aware tokens work inside an effect that otherwise only sees global tokens.
Once the image style exists, GSMI's settings form lets you pick a source image field on the node — an image field or a media-reference field — plus a fallback image for when that's empty. From there it generates the styled derivative from that source image, for any node of any content type that has the field.
Finally, GSMI exposes its own token — [node:generate-style], with optional style/field overrides — so you're not locked into the one global style/field pair configured in the settings form. I used that to drop the generated image into Metatag's og_image field for the Session content type on the MidCamp site, getting us dynamically generated session images..
A couple of gotchas we hit setting this up:
Text Overlay's layout options have some bugs, and not filling out all of the options will result in an image library error.
The bigger one: GSMI names the generated derivative file after the source image's filename — extension included — not after whatever format the image style actually outputs. If you try to convert an image to WebP you might get a WebP image with a JPG extension.
BUUUUT - LinkedIn still doesn't support WebP (at least as per their documentation, so it's still in 2026 not safe to use WebP for a universal og:image. https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a521928

Today we are talking about Supporting Open Source, Acquia, and The Acquia Fair Trade Initiative with guest James Sims. We'll also cover Image Effects as our module of the week.
For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/562
Topics
Fair Trade Initiative Explained
How the Program Started
Why Fair Trade Matters
Adoption and Open Framework
Agency and Freelancer Benefits
Partner Funded Giving
Who Can Be Makers
Tracking Participation
Tax Deduction Questions
Community Shaped Program
Money Counts Too
Early Challenges
Timeline And Launch
Sustainability Built In
How To Get Involved
Defining Success
Origins Of Fair Trade
Resources
Acquia Fair Trade Initiative
Taste of chicago Giordanos
Lou's pizza

Five For The Future
Image Convolution Playground
Guests
James Sims - rcjmselp85
Hosts
Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Avi Schwab - froboy.org froboy
MOTW
Correspondent
Avi Schwab - froboy.org froboy
Brief description: Have you ever gone to edit an image style in Drupal, looked at the list of filters, and said "give me more! I want more!". Have you said "I'd like to mirror, filter, and convolute an image in Drupal - all at the same time". If so, you're in luck. Let me introduce you to our module of the week:

Module name/project name: Image Effects

Brief history How old: Created by Drupal user mondrake of Italy on 17 September 2015. It's also the successor to the ImageCache Actions module, which was created all the way back in 2008.
Versions available: It has a 4.0.0 version available with Drupal 10 and 11 support, and a 5.0.0 version for Drupal 11.3 and above.

Maintainership Actively maintained
Security coverage
Test coverage
Documentation It has a full README with details about the available image styles and whether they are supported by the GD or ImageMagick PHP libraries.

Number of open issues: 35 open issues, 3 of which are bugs against the current branch. (The current branch has only been out a few months, and many of the open issues against prior branches seem to still be relevant.)

Usage stats: 35,196 sites report using this module, with most still on the 3.x or 4.x branches. (its predecessor, ImageCache Actions, still has over 25,000 active installs)

Module features and usage The module is pulled in just like any other, with composer require and then enable via drush or the UI. Once it's installed there is a very basic settings page, but most folks won't use much on there.
The power of Image Effects comes when you go to Config > Media > Image Styles and then edit an Image Style. Once Image Effects is enabled, you'll see over two dozen additional effects in the list.
These effects range from simple to complex. Interestingly, many of the effects that were so amazing 15 years ago are now doable with CSS. Still, there are some incredibly powerful filters.
Side note: I'd strongly recommend Aubrey Sambor's recent talk from Drupal Camp Asheville, "You Don't Need JS for That", and her prior talk "Color in CSS" to learn a ton of things you didn't know about CSS effects.
The basics like Color Shift, Contrast, Mirror, Rotate, and more are there if you'd like to do these natively.
More advanced filters like Sharpen, Blur, and Convolute let you make more complex modifications to images.
"Convolution" is the process of applying n-dimensional matrixes to images to create effects such as blurring, sharpening, and edge detection. Try it out on https://anna.engineering/Image-Convolution-Playground/src/
Lastly, you can create advanced image styles with ImageMagick arguments, create Text overlays using the power of Drupal tokens, or even develop your own Image Effects guided by the incredibly detailed DEVELOPING.md file included with the module.

Michael Kinnunen and Steve Wirt share how they each got started with Drupal through higher-ed jobs and stayed for the communit. They compare those community values to FIRST Robotics, explaining FIRST's K–12 programs (FRC, FTC, and FIRST LEGO League), kickoff-style challenges, and the "coopertition" culture where teams help competitors with parts and repairs. Both mentor highschool robotics teams in the US.
For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/cafe019
Topics
Cafe Catch Up
Drupal Origin Stories
Why Drupal Community
What Is FIRST
Mentoring Journeys
Team Names Numbers
Kickoff Build Sprint
Coopertition In Action
Awards And Impact
Drupal for Team Ops
Trying Recipes and Canvas
Time Investment and Module Fixes
Getting Students into Drupal
Mentor Load and Teaching Java
Student Run Team Culture
Robot Ecosystem and Everybot
Team Roles and Onboarding
Adversity and Grit Lessons
FIRST Programs and How to Join
Wrap Up and Good Luck
Steve Wirt
Drupal Developer for CivicActions by day, FIRST Robotics mentor by night
Steve has been a Drupal Developer for 19 years and helps government agencies build tools that help improve their mission. He is founding mentor of FRC team Compass Robotics.
Michael Kinnunen
Backend Engineer for CivicActions
Michael has been working with Drupal for about a decade, starting with Drupal 7 in 2016 as a Web Developer at Northern Michigan University. He has also spent the past six years as a mentor for the Negaunee Minerbotics FRC team, where he has helped students build technical skills in programming and engineering.
Guests
Steve Wirt - swirt
Michael Kinnunen - mkinnune
Resources
FIRST Robotics
Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition
Michael's team
https://github.com/minerbotics
https://www.facebook.com/MinerBotics4827/
Steve's team - Compass Robotics

Today we are talking about Aaron Winborn, The award named after him, and what winning is like with guests George DeMet & April Sides. We'll also cover Summit as our module of the week.
For show notes visit:
https://www.talkingDrupal.com/561
Topics
Who Was Aaron Winborn
Award Origin Story
How Winners Are Chosen
Why Community Matters
What Winners Share
April Learns She Won
Handcrafted Award Stories
On Stage Emotions
After Winning Reflections
How To Contribute
Nominations And Makers
Surprise Award Ideas
Wrap Up And Contacts
Resources
TD Cafe #018 - Drupal Site Templates
Aaron Winborn Award Winner
AskWookiee
Guests
April Sides - weekbeforenext
George DeMet - palantir.net gdemet
Hosts
Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan
John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Ashraf Abed - drupito.com ashrafabed
MOTW
Correspondent
Martin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu
Brief description: Have you ever wanted to create a website purpose-built for an event like a Drupal camp, that collects, moderates, and schedules user-submitted sessions, and do all of that within the Drupal CMS installer? There's a site template for that.

Module name/project name: Summit Site Template

Brief history How old: created in June 2026 by yours truly
Versions available: 1.0.0, released yesterday

Maintainership Actively maintained
Security and test coverage
Documentation some in the repo we'll talk about later
Number of open issues: no open issues, though there are a couple of open issues on the Event Platform Starter, from which Summit was created

Module features and usage We've talked before on this podcast about the Event Platform that grew out of an initiative from the Event Organizers Working Group. The goal is to remove friction for anyone organizing a Drupal camp or similar event in creating a website that sets them up for success
The Event Platform was created before Recipes were a thing in the Drupal-verse, even though it was initially built in ways that were similar to recipes
A couple of years ago, I started working on the Event Platform Starter recipe to help spin up a fully-built event website in a single step. That ran into some technical complexities, so it ended up being being a time-saver, but still required a number of manual steps
As the newer concept of site templates took shape, I could see that the Event Platform ecosystem had the necessary elements to become a site template, in particular a theme and a battle-tested a content architecture
I ended up needing to decouple the configuration and the functional code that had previously been in Event Platform. The configuration would reside solely in the site template, so the functional code was moved to a new project, Event Platform Helper
Along the way, there have been a number of significant changes: Canvas integration for a fully customizable homepage, also a set of Canvas components to allow building new, custom layouts, a new, custom cache context, improved management of event information, and more
Now, you set everything up with a single click in the Drupal CMS installer. There's an open issue to get it into the Drupal CMS installer by default, but today it's just a composer require away
The repo does also include an AGENTS.md and CONTENT-STRUCTURE.md files, to help human or AI agents who want to work a site built using Summit to understand the initial state of the content architecture it provides, as well as the different logical components and how to troubleshoot them, individually or in combination