--- title: Software engineering is evolving into factory engineering! description: Software engineering is reframed as 'factory engineering,' where AI agents participate across planning, coding, review, testing, and deployment while humans... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/software-engineering-is-evolving-into-factory-engineering--hwnaz2tfl twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Software engineering is evolving into factory engineering! | daily.dev og:description: Software engineering is reframed as 'factory engineering,' where AI agents participate across planning, coding, review, testing, and deployment while humans... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/software-engineering-is-evolving-into-factory-engineering--hwnaz2tfl og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/Hwnaz2tFl.png og:image:alt: Software engineering is evolving into factory engineering! 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. # Software engineering is evolving into factory engineering! **[Pavan Belagatti](https://daily.dev/sources/dfa0u7-fs)** · [@johhnypav](https://daily.dev/johhnypav) · 2 min read · 78 upvotes · 26 comments ## Summary Software engineering is reframed as 'factory engineering,' where AI agents participate across planning, coding, review, testing, and deployment while humans retain judgment at key checkpoints. The concept relies on a 'harness' - a software catalog, scorecards, self-service actions, and agent identities - that gives agents reliable context (referencing Anthropic's idea of context engineering) so existing CI/CD, observability, and security tooling becomes the underlying machinery. A linked video offers a hands-on guide to building such an AI software factory. ## Content We are in that AI era where humans and agents can safely build & deploy software together. That’s what the AI Software Factory represents. At the top, AI agents participate across each stage of SDLC - planning, writing, reviewing, building, testing, and deployment, with humans stepping in where judgment, approval, or accountability matters. This aligns with Anthropic’s view of effective agents: agents work best when they can use tools, obtain ground truth from their environment, and return to humans at meaningful checkpoints. And it should be because, it is still very early for developers to give a complete authority to agents to deploy a piece of critical software autonomously. One this to understand here - agents alone don’t create a factory, the surrounding engineering system does. That is where the concept of harness comes in. Agents need reliable context about ownership, dependencies, standards, previous changes, and production state. Anthropic calls this broader challenge context engineering - giving an agent the right information and tools at the right moment rather than relying on prompts alone. That is why the middle layer matters: the software catalog provides context, scorecards encode standards, self-service actions define sanctioned paths, and agent identities make autonomous actions attributable and reviewable. The existing SDLC tooling doesn’t disappear - CI/CD, observability, infrastructure, security, and developer tools become the machinery underneath. Well, here is my hands-on guide to building an AI Software Factory: [https://youtu.be/z54IMzleZMk](https://youtu.be/z54IMzleZMk?si=33rwsMsnm0-JK5bA) ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@confidentcoding** · 11 upvotes > Hard disagree. The data is still not there that this is the future and has yielded measurable benefits. The important part is at 15 mins. > > [https://youtu.be/Se8jHLliLXE](https://youtu.be/Se8jHLliLXE) **@anmolbaranwal** · 6 upvotes > for most people it would seem as hype and it's very hard to argue unless you can show the output/benefits rather than big giants talking/building all of it > > i also covered it here btw - Software factories explained without the hype > [https://daily.dev/posts/software-factories-explained-without-the-hype-sbn9s8hh5](https://daily.dev/posts/software-factories-explained-without-the-hype-sbn9s8hh5) **@jntnlima** · 3 upvotes >  **@deepjoshi\_dev** · 3 upvotes > My take is to stay silent while using them. **@capestart** · 2 upvotes > Good read, Pavan. I like that you didn't make the agents the whole story. The boring infrastructure around them is probably what determines whether this works in practice. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The Factory Model: How Coding Agents Changed Software Engineering](https://daily.dev/posts/the-factory-model-how-coding-agents-changed-software-engineering-eavrwedl9) · Addy Osmani · 64 upvotes · 2 comments - [Software Engineering is back](https://daily.dev/posts/software-engineering-is-back-hjzmvzpqs) · Hacker News · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Software factory: what it is and how to build one](https://daily.dev/posts/software-factory-what-it-is-and-how-to-build-one-3dww0u5ba) · CircleCI · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#cicd](https://daily.dev/tags/cicd), [#anthropic](https://daily.dev/tags/anthropic), [#internal-developer-platform](https://daily.dev/tags/internal-developer-platform) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/software-engineering-is-evolving-into-factory-engineering--hwnaz2tfl) ```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":"DiscussionForumPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https://daily.dev/posts/software-engineering-is-evolving-into-factory-engineering--hwnaz2tfl","headline":"Software engineering is evolving into factory engineering!","text":"Software engineering is reframed as 'factory engineering,' where AI agents participate across planning, coding, review, testing, and deployment while humans retain judgment at key checkpoints. The concept relies on a 'harness' - a software catalog, scorecards, self-service actions, and agent identities - that gives agents reliable context (referencing Anthropic's idea of context engineering) so existing CI/CD, observability, and security tooling becomes the underlying machinery. A linked video offers a hands-on guide to building such an AI software factory.","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/software-engineering-is-evolving-into-factory-engineering--hwnaz2tfl","datePublished":"2026-10-04T09:18:31.571Z","dateModified":"2026-10-04T09:18:46.116Z","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Pavan Belagatti","url":"https://daily.dev/johhnypav","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--r9dshbly--/f_auto/v1776930121/avatars/avatar_DFA0U7-fS?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","description":"Developer Evangelist","interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"EndorseAction"},"userInteractionCount":3110}},"image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--hOelvOrq--/f_auto/v1791105511/posts/Hwnaz2tFl?_a=BAMAMicg0","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":78},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":26}],"comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"Hard disagree. The data is still not there that this is the future and has yielded measurable benefits. The important part is at 15 mins.\nhttps://youtu.be/Se8jHLliLXE","datePublished":"2026-10-04T18:19:37.168Z","dateModified":"2026-10-04T18:21:46.935Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/Hwnaz2tFl#c-lbdwK938C","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Lars Faye | Confident Coding","url":"https://daily.dev/confidentcoding","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--OGZu5DEc--/f_auto/v1772569630/avatars/avatar_umWZ9aQAng34qk5aaJl2q?_a=BAMAMiiu0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":11}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"for most people it would seem as hype and it’s very hard to argue unless you can show the output/benefits rather than big giants talking/building all of it\ni also covered it here btw - Software factories explained without the hype\nhttps://daily.dev/posts/software-factories-explained-without-the-hype-sbn9s8hh5","datePublished":"2026-10-05T09:34:35.774Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/Hwnaz2tFl#c-pmy8xktb3","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Anmol Baranwal","url":"https://daily.dev/anmolbaranwal","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/74038190?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":6}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"","datePublished":"2026-10-06T02:50:03.112Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/Hwnaz2tFl#c-m1TflTVN6","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Jonathan Lima","url":"https://daily.dev/jntnlima","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/67848049?v=4"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":3}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"My take is to stay silent while using them.","datePublished":"2026-10-05T13:39:31.296Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/Hwnaz2tFl#c-cYMXRHwI2","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Deep Joshi","url":"https://daily.dev/deepjoshi_dev","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--TdY8j8Aa--/f_auto/v1776506972/avatars/avatar_aSUkzUQS97QJpQRxKMe49?_a=BAMAMiWQ0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":3}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Good read, Pavan. I like that you didn’t make the agents the whole story. The boring infrastructure around them is probably what determines whether this works in practice.","datePublished":"2026-10-07T09:54:32.311Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/Hwnaz2tFl#c-REAOTFf0E","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"CapeStart","url":"https://daily.dev/capestart","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--whj108mU--/f_auto/v1758187812/avatars/avatar_Pcn9ylzyt9IhD4SoHHPHt?_a=BAMAK+ZW0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}}],"isPartOf":{"@type":"WebPage","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/dfa0u7-fs","name":"Pavan Belagatti"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Pavan Belagatti","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/dfa0u7-fs"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Software engineering is evolving into factory engineering!"}]} ```