agentic-engineering

Agentic Engineering

Engineering workflows where AI agents perform most implementation work and humans enforce quality and risk controls.

Operating Principles

1. Define completion criteria before execution
2. Decompose work into agent-sized units
3. Route model tiers by task complexity
4. Measure with evals and regression checks

Eval-First Loop

1. Define capability eval and regression eval
2. Run baseline and capture failure signatures
3. Execute implementation
4. Re-run evals and compare deltas

Task Decomposition

Apply the 15-minute unit rule:

• Each unit should be independently verifiable
• Each unit should have a single dominant risk
• Each unit should expose a clear done condition

Model Routing

• Haiku: Classification, boilerplate transforms, narrow edits
• Sonnet: Implementation and refactors
• Opus: Architecture, root-cause analysis, multi-file invariants

Session Strategy

• Continue session for closely-coupled units
• Start fresh session after major phase transitions
• Compact after milestone completion, not during active debugging

Review Focus for AI-Generated Code

Prioritize:

• Invariants and edge cases
• Error boundaries
• Security and auth assumptions
• Hidden coupling and rollout risk

Do not waste review cycles on style-only disagreements when automated format/lint already enforce style.

Cost Discipline

Track per task:

• Model used
• Token estimate
• Retries
• Wall-clock time
• Success/failure

Escalate model tier only when lower tier fails with a clear reasoning gap.