It works in the sense that there are lots of professional (as in they earn money from software engineering) developers out there who do the work of exactly same quality. I would even bet they are the majority (or at least were prior to late 2024).
Ask HN: Do you have any evidence that agentic coding works?
11–20 of 478 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you have any evidence that agentic coding works?
#12Re: Ask HN: Do you have any evidence that agentic coding works?
#13I’ve heard coding agents best described as a fleet of junior developers available to you 24/7 and I think that’s about right. With the added downside that they don’t really learn as they go so they will forever be junior developers (until models get better).
There are projects where throwing a dozen junior developers at the problem can work but they’re very basic CRUD type things.
Re: Ask HN: Do you have any evidence that agentic coding works?
#14My experience is the same. In short, agents cannot plan ahead, or plan at a high level. This means they have a blindspot for design. Since they cannot design properly, it limits the kind of projects that are viable to smaller scopes (not sure exactly how small but in my experience, extremely small and simple). Anything that exceeds this abstract threshold has a good chance of being a net negative, with most of the co…
>Anyone who claims AI is great is not building a large or complex enough app
I can't speak for everyone, but lots of us fully understand that the AI tooling has limitations and realize there's a LOT of work that can be done within those limitations. Also, those limitations are expanding, so it's good to experiment to find out where they are.
Conversely, it seems like a lot of people are saying that AI is worthless because it can't build arbitrarily large apps.
I've recently used the AI tooling to make a docusign-like service and it did a fairly good job of it, requiring about a days worth of my attention. That's not an amazingly complex app, but it's not nothing either. Ditto for a calorie tracking web app. Not the most complex app, but companies are making legit money off them, if you want a tangible measure of "worth".
Re: Ask HN: Do you have any evidence that agentic coding works?
#15Since we are on this topic, how would I make an agent that does this job:
I am writing an automation software that interfaces with a legacy windows CAD program. Depending on the automation, I just need a picture of the part. Sometimes I need part thickness. Sometimes I need to delete parts. Etc... Its very much interacting with the CAD system and checking the CAD file or output for desired results.
I was considering something that would take screenshots and send it back for checks. Not sure what platforms can do this. I am stumped how Visual Studio works with this, there are a bunch of pieces like servers, agents, etc...
Even a how-to link would work for me. I imagine this would be extremely custom.
Re: Ask HN: Do you have any evidence that agentic coding works?
#16Works pretty great for me, especially Spec-driven development using OpenSpec
- Cleaner code - Easily 5x speed minimum - Better docs, designs - Focus more on the product than than the mechanics - More time for family
Re: Ask HN: Do you have any evidence that agentic coding works?
#17I have the same experience despite using claude every day. As an funny anecdote: Someone I know wrote the code and the unit tests for a new feature with an agent. The code was subtly wrong, fine, it happens, but worse the 30 or so tests they added added 10 minutes to the test run time and they all essentially amounted to `expect(true).to.be(true)` because the LLM had worked around the code not working in the tests
> they all essentially amounted to `expect(true).to.be(true)` because the LLM had worked around the code not working in the tests
A very human solution
Re: Ask HN: Do you have any evidence that agentic coding works?
#18I did the same experiment as you, and this is what I learned:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/concrete-vibe-coding-jorge-va...
The bottom line is this:
* The developer stop been a developer, and becomes a product designer with high technical skills.
* This is a different set of skills than than a developer or a product owner currently have. It is a mix of both, and the expectations of how agentic development works need to be adjusted.
* The working with an agent feels more like mentoring the AI than ask and receive.
* Use TDD, ask the agent to create the tests, and then code to the test. Don't correct the bugs, make the agent correct them and explain why that is a bug, specially with code design decisions. Store those in AGENTS.md file at the root of the project.
There are more things that can be done to guide the agent, but I need to have clear in an articulable way the direction of the coding. On the other side, I don't worry about implementation details like how to use libraries and APIs that I am not familiar with, the agent just writes and I test.
Currently I am working on a product and I can tell you, working no more than 10 hours a week (2 hours here, 3 there, leave the agent working while I am having dinner with family) I am progressing at I would say 5 to 10 times faster than without it. So, yeah it works, but I had to adjust how I do my job.
Re: Ask HN: Do you have any evidence that agentic coding works?
#191. Start with a plan. Get AI to help you make it, and edit.
2. Part of the plan should be automated tests. AI can make these for you too, but you should spot check for reasonable behavior.
3. Use Claude 4.5 Opus
4. Use Git, get the AI to check in its work in meaningful chunks, on its own git branch.
5. Ask the AI to keep am append-only developer log as a markdown file, and to update it whenever its state significantly changes, or it makes a large discovery, or it is "surprised" by anything.
Re: Ask HN: Do you have any evidence that agentic coding works?
#20Yep, it works. Like anything getting the most out of these tools is its own (human) skill.
With that in mind, a couple of comments - think of the coding agents as personalities with blind spots. A code review by all of them and a synthesis step is a good idea. In fact currently popular is the “rule of 5” which suggests you need the LLM to review five times, and to vary the level of review, e.g. bugs, architecture, structure, etc. Anecdotally, I find this is extremely effective.
Right now, Claude is in my opinion the best coding agent out there. With Claude code, the best harnesses are starting to automate the review / PR process a bit, but the hand holding around bugs is real.
I also really like Yegge’s beads for LLMs keeping state and track of what they’re doing — upshot, I suggest you install beads, load Claude, run ‘!bd prime’ and say “Give me a full, thorough code review for all sorts of bugs, architecture, incorrect tests, specification, usability, code bugs, plus anything else you see, and write out beads based on your findings.” Then you could have Claude (or codex) work through them. But you’ll probably find a fresh eye will save time, e.g. give Claude a try for a day.
Your ‘duplicated code’ complaint is likely an artifact of how codex interacts with your codebase - codex in particular likes to load smaller chunks of code in to do work, and sometimes it can get too little context. You can always just cat the relevant files right into the context, which can be helpful.
Finally, iOS is a tough target — I’d expect a few more bumps. The vast bulk of iOS apps are not up on GitHub, so there’s less facility in the coding models.
And any front end work doesn’t really have good native visual harnesses set up, (although Claude has the Claude chrome extension for web UIs). So there’s going to be more back and forth.
Anyway - if you’re a career engineer, I’d tell you - learn this stuff. It’s going to be how you work in very short order. If you’re a hobbyist, have a good time and do whatever you want.