I Catch Up a Tesla BLE Library the Way I Run Agents 🚗

Hey tech adventurers! I maintain a little C++ / Arduino library that communicates with Teslas over Bluetooth — it handles tasks such as unlocking, climate control, and charging. One wrong byte and the car simply ignores you. It was a while since I last worked on this repo; catching it up by myself would have taken weeks of meticulous effort.

The issue wasn't with typing, but rather the fear of breaking something until I could test it on a real car and avoid looking foolish. So, I didn't do it manually. How I actually work involves planning first, gathering a few independent perspectives, ensuring the checks are real through automated tests, and then letting an agent handle the repetitive tasks.

I pointed my Agent at the library with a specific shape. I outlined the catch-up process, put checks in place, and let the Agent do the heavy lifting. Should it fail, I fix it and continue moving forward. The process used to take weeks but now only takes hours. The Tesla aspect is just an example. Before the Agent ran rampant, I added a small host test suite containing known-good messages that the car expects.

This ensures a change either passes or fails. Short receipts suffice so the Agent can fail, fix, and keep going without me having to re-learn the entire protocol from clues every time. Interestingly, I finally touched a library I'd been avoiding by refusing to touch it myself. It was a peak moment. You can find the repo at https://github.com/pmdroid/tesla-vehicle-command.