From generating files to using tools: a code agent's ReAct loop
So far in this series, the agent generated the whole solution in a single call: you gave it the spec and the tests, and the model returned the entire function. That works when the whole task fits in a prompt. But in a real repository you don't know in advance which files you'll need, and you can't fit thousands of them into the context window. The leap in this post is to give the agent tools so…
In this article, the author discusses how a code agent utilizes a ReAct loop with tools to read, search, edit, and run commands in order to solve coding tasks within a repository. The key difference from the previous post is the shift from generating the entire solution in a single call to using a variety of tools as needed during the reasoning process.
This allows the agent to dynamically determine which files and information are necessary to complete the task, rather than attempting to provide the entire repository's context in a single prompt. The author emphasizes that the agent's actions are now choices among multiple available tools, which enables it to function more like a real code agent.
The core loop remains consistent, consisting of reasoning, taking an action (such as reading or searching), observing the result, and repeating until a stop condition is met.
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