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Ask HN: Are you using an agent orchestrator to write code?
61–67 of 67 posts
Re: Ask HN: Are you using an agent orchestrator to write code?
#62[flagged]
Re: Ask HN: Are you using an agent orchestrator to write code?
#63I tend to have between 4-15 agent sessions going at once, but importantly I’m counting agents that are awaiting inputs from me.
My agent orchestration system is a bespoke python program that I vibed just for me. It is one of thousands of systems that combines git worktrees and devcontainers. But I’ve customized it for my quirks and workflows. The big win is I can decide on a repo by repo basis what level of permissions to give an agent from yolo mode to very limited permissions.
In that agent count there are usually 3-5 sessions that are my main tasks mixed between research, planning,coding and code review. The balance of the sessions are sessions for other tasks, improving tests, adding new kinds of guard rails, projects that are ancillary etc.
Re: Ask HN: Are you using an agent orchestrator to write code?
#64Founder here.
In the last six months I’ve been heads-down building ORA—an autonomous super agent that represents the next step toward AGI. I basically use it for every piece of work right now, including `to write code`.
Demo videos are now up on the @OscerraHQ X account. Your feedback would be invaluable as we work to perfect the product before launch.
Re: Ask HN: Are you using an agent orchestrator to write code?
#65[flagged]
Re: Ask HN: Are you using an agent orchestrator to write code?
#66[flagged]
The Yegge claim about manual code review being outdated conflates two things: reviewing for correctness vs. reviewing for design coherence. Agents are getting decent at the first (does this function do what the spec says?) but remain weak at the second (does this abstraction fit the existing architecture? will this pattern scale when the next feature lands?).
What actually works for me is treating agents less like autonomous developers and more like very fast typists who need clear architectural guardrails. The heavy lifting is writing the context documents -- architecture decision records, module boundary descriptions, naming conventions -- that constrain the generation. Ironically, the better your documentation, the less you need an orchestrator, because a single agent with good context produces coherent code on the first pass.
The git worktree pattern multiple people mention is underrated. Having each agent work on an isolated branch with automated test gates before merge catches the drift problem at the integration point rather than trying to prevent it during generation.
Re: Ask HN: Are you using an agent orchestrator to write code?
#67Yeah, but not a framework. I'm using Claude Code's hook system. 84 hooks across 15 event types.
Biggest thing I learned: don't let multiple hooks fire independently on the same event. I had seven on UserPromptSubmit, each reading stdin on their own. Two wrote to the same JSON state file. Concurrent writes = truncated JSON = every downstream hook breaks. One dispatcher per event running them sequentially from cached stdin fixed it. 200ms overhead per prompt, which you never notice.
The "multi-agent is worse than serial" take is true when agents share context. Stops being true when you give planning agents their own session (broad context, lots of file reads) and implementation agents their own (narrow task, full window). I didn't plan that separation. It just turned out that mixing both in one session made both worse.
No framework, no runtime. Just files. You can use one hook or eighty-four.