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Gemini CLI tips and tricks for agentic coding

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Re: Gemini CLI tips and tricks for agentic coding

#111

Post by m4rtink »

Ozzie_osman wrote: post #88
preommr wrote: post #57

I am not doing any of this. It becomes obsolete in literally weeks, and it also doesn't work 80% of the time. Like why write a mcp server for custom tasks when I don't know if the llm is going to reliably call it. My rule for AI has been steadfast for months (years?) now. I write (myself, not AI because then I spend more time guiding the AI instead of thinking about the problem) documentation for myself (templates, c…

An alternative is to view the AI agent as a new developer on your team. If existing guidance + one-shot doesn't work, revisit the documentation and guidance (ie dotMD file), see what's missing, improve it, and try again. Like telling a new engineer "actually, here is how we do this thing". The engineer learns and next time gets it right. I don't do MCPs much because of effort and security risks. But I find the loop a…

I don't think you can say it learns - and that is part of the issue. Time mentoring a new colleague is well spent making the colleague grow professionally.

Time hand-holding an AI agent is wasted when all you guidance inevitably falls out of the context window and it start making the same mistakes again.

Re: Gemini CLI tips and tricks for agentic coding

#112

Post by alchemism »

oblio wrote: post #105
oblio wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the benefit of git worktree? I imagine you can just not give the agent access to git and you're in the same spot?

I'll reply to myself since apparently people downvote and move on: They're useful for allowing agents to work in parallel. I imagine some people give them access to git and tools and sandbox the agents, then let a bunch of them work in separate git worktrees pointed at the same branch, then they come back and investigate/compare and contrast what the agents have done, to accelerate their work. I think there is value…

Welcome to engineering management.

Re: Gemini CLI tips and tricks for agentic coding

#113

Post by game_the0ry »

I like AI a lot. I try to use to as much as I can. It feels like it is becoming an essential part of making me a more effective human, like the internet or my iphone. I do not see it as a bad thing.

But I can't help but to get "AI tutorial fatigue" from so many posts telling me about how to use AI. Most are garbage, this one is better than most. Its like how javascript developer endlessly post about the newest ui framework or js build tool. This feels a lot like that.

Re: Gemini CLI tips and tricks for agentic coding

#114

Post by oblio »

alchemism wrote: post #112
oblio wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll reply to myself since apparently people downvote and move on: They're useful for allowing agents to work in parallel. I imagine some people give them access to git and tools and sandbox the agents, then let a bunch of them work in separate git worktrees pointed at the same branch, then they come back and investigate/compare and contrast what the agents have done, to accelerate their work. I think there is value…

Welcome to engineering management.

The average quality of software engineering is abysmal, and the average quality of software engineering management is even worse. I'm not very enthusiastic about where this is headed.

Re: Gemini CLI tips and tricks for agentic coding

#116

Post by Y_Y »

AdieuToLogic wrote: post #75
preommr wrote: post #57

I am not doing any of this. It becomes obsolete in literally weeks, and it also doesn't work 80% of the time. Like why write a mcp server for custom tasks when I don't know if the llm is going to reliably call it. My rule for AI has been steadfast for months (years?) now. I write (myself, not AI because then I spend more time guiding the AI instead of thinking about the problem) documentation for myself (templates, c…

A perspective which has helped me is viewing LLM-based offerings strictly as statistical document generators, whose usefulness is entirely dependent upon their training data set plus model evolution, and whose usage is best modeled as a form of constraint programming[0] lacking a formal (repeatable) grammar. As such, and when considering the subjectivity of natural languages in general, the best I hope for when using…

Doesn't look like your handwritten example follows the direction on commenting.

(While we're at it, there's no need for an apostrophe when pluralising an initialism, like "URLs".)

Re: Gemini CLI tips and tricks for agentic coding

#118

Post by Y_Y »

davej wrote: post #48
cjbarber wrote: post #43

Notable re author: “Addy Osmani is an Irish Software Engineer and leader currently working on the Google Chrome web browser and Gemini with Google DeepMind. A developer for 25+ years, he has worked at Google for over thirteen years, focused on making the web low-friction for users and web developers. He is passionate about AI-assisted engineering and developer tools. He previously worked on Fortune 500 sites. Addy is…

Also a winner of the Irish Young Scientist competition, 2 years before Patrick Collison. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Scientist_and_Technology...

I remember that win. Seemed super fishy at the time, with bizarre features like:

- "the World's first ever, fully featured DVD playing sidebar"

- "allowing users to send e-mails without needing to log-in to an account"

- "an AI (Artificial Intelligence) animated speech character named Phoebe"

Maybe this guy really did make a super original web browser with every bell and whistle as an independent sixteen year old. I never saw a release, so the mystery remains.

https://www.irishscientist.ie/2003/contents_contentxml-03p14...

Re: Gemini CLI tips and tricks for agentic coding

#119

Post by chrisweekly »

cjbarber wrote: post #43

Notable re author: “Addy Osmani is an Irish Software Engineer and leader currently working on the Google Chrome web browser and Gemini with Google DeepMind. A developer for 25+ years, he has worked at Google for over thirteen years, focused on making the web low-friction for users and web developers. He is passionate about AI-assisted engineering and developer tools. He previously worked on Fortune 500 sites. Addy is…

In the web performance community, he's earned a well-deserved, stellar reputation.

Re: Gemini CLI tips and tricks for agentic coding

#120

Post by insin »

game_the0ry wrote: post #113

I like AI a lot. I try to use to as much as I can. It feels like it is becoming an essential part of making me a more effective human, like the internet or my iphone. I do not see it as a bad thing. But I can't help but to get "AI tutorial fatigue" from so many posts telling me about how to use AI. Most are garbage, this one is better than most. Its like how javascript developer endlessly post about the newest ui fra…

People telling you how to/how they use LLMs has become utterly boring, doesn't matter if it's some rando posting this isn't just X, it's Y slop purely for engagement, or someone you like and respect (your Addys and your Simons) putting the effort in because they want to educate/inform.

Boring.

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