AI

Earlier this week I published a reflective post on how agentic coding has changed my working day and the shape of the profession. I now want to turn to the other side of that coin: not the philosophy, but the mechanics — the habits, the workflows, the accumulated tricks that turn agentic coding from an occasionally impressive demo into a dependable way of working. This post is my field manual. It’s what I’ve learned over the past few months, mostly by getting things wrong and slowly figuring out better approaches. Your mileage will vary, but all of this is what I actually do, now, on a working Thursday in April 2026. ...

At the start of 2026, my working day looked roughly as it had done for the past couple of decades. I would open my IDE in the morning, and close it in the evening, and in between I would write code by typing it into a window designed for that purpose. Carefully and diligently, always trying to envisage myself as a journeyman stonecutter whose work would ultimately be part of some great cathedral of code. ...

“Would it help if we reduced the number of questions from fifteen to ten?” That was the response when I asked what I had thought was a fairly ordinary question: “What’s the algorithm?” I had just joined a small marketing company that had decided it was actually a new media IT company. They had landed a project connected with Pedigree Chum and the Crufts Dog Show. Their big idea was to build a little interactive exhibit called Selectadog. Visitors would amble over to a stand, answer a series of questions about their lifestyle, and the software would recommend the perfect breed of dog for them. ...