Nitrogen-containing heterocycles are one of the most prevalent classes of compounds found in pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, and natural products. Their versatility as drug candidates stems from the ability to modulate their physicochemical properties through structural modifications. However, diversifying a lead compound can often be a complex process, requiring multi-step synthetic sequences (Figure ). Traditionally, chemists have relied on de novo strategies, which are often step-and atominefficient, to create common intermediates that eventually lead to the desired analogues of a parent drug candidate. As a result, late-stage functionalization (LSF) has gained significant traction in modern synthetic chemistry, offering a more efficient alternative (Figure ). Over the past decade, synthetic methods that enable the generation of structural analogues without the need for prefunctionalization have greatly advanced medicinal chemistry efforts. In medicinal chemistry, minor structural changes to a drug molecule can significantly enhance its activity or pharmacological properties, such as logD, polar surface area, solubility, and pKa. To achieve these improvements, the introduction of small alkyl fragments (C1-C4) is commonly used to optimize the ADME (Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, and Excretion) profile of lead candidates. A prime example of this trend is the "magic methyl effect", where the replacement of a single hydrogen atom with a methyl group can drastically alter both the biological and physical properties of the parent molecule (Figure ). Traditionally, the incorporation of small alkyl fragments has relied on methods like transition-metal catalyzed cross-couplings, direct metalation or C(sp 2 )-H functionalization of the corresponding arene . However, in recent years, Minisci-type reactions have emerged as a reliable approach for the latestage alkylation of complex heteroarene molecules. While mild photocatalytic variants have demonstrated success in generating alkylated analogues of heavily decorated N-heterocycles, challenges remain in the efficient incorporation of small alkyl units (C1-C4). Specifically, these methods typically require prefunctionalized radical precursors, such as carboxylic acids, boronic acids, alcohols, peroxides and alkyl halides, to produce alkylated analogues of complex heterocycles (Figure ). Notably, these approaches often lack modularity and do not offer a unified strategy to incorporate a wide variety of short alkyl fragments.