--- title: AI should help us produce better code - Agentic... description: Simon Willison argues that AI coding agents should be used to raise code quality rather than lower it. He frames the issue around technical debt: many common... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/ai-should-help-us-produce-better-code---agentic-engineering-patterns-pjgeflk15 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: AI should help us produce better code - Agentic Engineering Patterns | daily.dev og:description: Simon Willison argues that AI coding agents should be used to raise code quality rather than lower it. He frames the issue around technical debt: many common... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/ai-should-help-us-produce-better-code---agentic-engineering-patterns-pjgeflk15 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/pJgeflK15.png og:image:alt: AI should help us produce better code - Agentic Engineering Patterns og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # AI should help us produce better code - Agentic Engineering Patterns **[Lobsters](https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Simon Willison argues that AI coding agents should be used to raise code quality rather than lower it. He frames the issue around technical debt: many common debt fixes are conceptually simple but time-consuming, making them ideal tasks for async coding agents like Gemini Jules, OpenAI Codex, or Claude Code. Agents can also support exploratory prototyping to validate technology choices cheaply. He closes by advocating for a 'compound engineering' loop where each project ends with a retrospective that improves future agent instructions, enabling teams to ship new features and improve quality simultaneously. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Agentic AI Engineering in Practice: How AI Engineers and Forward-Deployed Engineers Build with Claude Code, Codex, and Gemini](https://daily.dev/posts/agentic-ai-engineering-in-practice-how-ai-engineers-and-forward-deployed-engineers-build-with-claud-nj03xq7ka) · freeCodeCamp · 4 upvotes · 0 comments - [What is agentic engineering? - Agentic Engineering Patterns](https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-agentic-engineering---agentic-engineering-patterns-sixo2prnt) · Hacker News · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Agentic Skill Decay](https://daily.dev/posts/agentic-skill-decay-nzqkcham8) · Addy Osmani · 89 upvotes · 13 comments --- Tags: [#technical-debt](https://daily.dev/tags/technical-debt) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-should-help-us-produce-better-code---agentic-engineering-patterns-pjgeflk15) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"AI should help us produce better code - Agentic Engineering Patterns","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/ai-should-help-us-produce-better-code---agentic-engineering-patterns-pjgeflk15","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/ai-should-help-us-produce-better-code---agentic-engineering-patterns-pjgeflk15"},"datePublished":"2026-03-11T08:21:57.818Z","dateModified":"2026-03-11T08:22:23.926Z","description":"Simon Willison argues that AI coding agents should be used to raise code quality rather than lower it. He frames the issue around technical debt: many common...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--OHB84bZF--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2010","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--OHB84bZF--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2010","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Lobsters","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Lobsters","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--tl8v_Fku--/f_auto,t_logo/v1698841318/logos/lobste.jpg","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/ai-should-help-us-produce-better-code---agentic-engineering-patterns-pjgeflk15","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"technical-debt","timeRequired":"PT5M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Lobsters","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"AI should help us produce better code - Agentic Engineering Patterns"}]} ```