How to Quickly Understand and Improve AI Agent Design
Coding with agents really has surfaced a bunch of problems and challenges we never ran into when writing code by hand. Agents work even faster than you'd expect. That's an advantage — and also a liability. The Problem We're used to discussing the plan with the AI before implementing anything. But I've noticed that, since it hasn't actually built the thing yet, the boundaries the AI discusses with…
Coding with agents has revealed numerous issues we hadn't encountered when writing code manually. Agents operate at a far quicker pace than anticipated, which is advantageous but also presents a challenge. Typically, we discuss plans with AI before implementation. However, I've observed that, as the AI hasn't built the thing yet, the boundaries it discusses during design are all hypothetical. This leads to extensive back-and-forth arguing over imagined boundaries, consuming considerable time.
A more efficient approach is to allow the AI to develop a preliminary version of the design, then have a human test it in a development or quality assurance environment. Through this process, the human can gauge the design's functionality, and subsequently refine the design accordingly.
However, this method introduces another issue. An AI can rapidly generate features, providing a general sense of the design. Yet, comprehending the intricate details of the AI's description can be challenging. At times, I spend considerable time querying the AI for design specifics and still fail to grasp the nuances. I remain uncertain about where to begin.
Thus, we must now consider not just how to communicate with the AI, but how to enable a human brain to swiftly comprehend the AI's design. In essence, we need to synchronize the AI's design with our own understanding.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
