10 technical talks I’m excited about at GitHub Universe 2026

I’m looking for ideas I can take back to my own work, from verifying agent-written code and securing dependencies to building software that works where internet access is unreliable.

There are more sessions at GitHub Universe than I can fit into two days. To narrow the list, I built my agenda around questions I’m working through right now:

How do we know an agent’s code works?

What are we trusting every time we install a dependency?

That puts agent memory, evaluations, and permissions high on my list. I’m also making room for JavaScript tooling and building software where internet access is unreliable. Here are my 10 picks.

What happens behind the scenes when you run npm install

Most of us use npm, but the truth is that many of us rarely stop to think about the people, permissions, and release processes behind the packages it pulls in. …