The Last Mile Problem in Agentic Development
Agents have made the first 80% of building software fast. Point enough of them at a well-defined problem, and you get working code, passing tests, and a system that looks almost done, sometimes in hours. Then you hit the last 10 to 20%. That's where I think the biggest problem facing agentic developers lives today: getting from 80 or 90% done to 100%. Not generating code, but hardening an idea…
The "last mile" in agentic development is the final 10 to 20% of the process, where building software fast meets the challenge of making it 100% complete. This stage involves hardening ideas for perfection, dealing with edge cases, integration issues, and failure modes. While hundreds of agents can generate code at an unprecedented scale, the bottleneck arises when one person or a small team must complete the work for all of them.
The bottleneck isn't building anymore; it's completing. In KandiForge, agents had created millions of lines of code across 20 repositories, but the creator struggled to finish the entire codebase due to the sheer volume of work and the lack of time to address every detail. Adding more reviewers and testers didn't solve the problem, as tests were only effective after code integration.
The creator shares their ongoing efforts to tackle this issue, aiming to share their experiences and learn from others in the field.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
