Missing my biggest issues as you ask the agents to do larger tasks with less up front planning.
Is there already a pattern or code on in in the existing codebase that handles this functionality,
Do we really need net new code to achieve this functionality?
Can existing code be extended or abstracted to more cleanly implement this feature or functionality.
“Net new” is one it seems to be particularly bad at.
I don’t think I have ever even once seen an LLM solve a problem related to overengineering by simply removing the overengineering. They always choose to add more epicycles and further compound the complexity.
You can tell it to do that. I don't mean abstractly, I mean concretely, tell it how to solve it and it will do what you tell it.
When you get to that level of micromanagement, won't it be simpler to just do it yourself?
Some times I do, but no not really. If it's just a simple change of one or two lines I'll do it manually, but larger changes are much faster with AI.
I'll lay out a vague plan and let the AI fill in the blanks, mostly it'll get them right and where it doesn't I'll just tell it to do it differently and how. Works great for me.