Sometimes the agent doesn't notice that the code already solves for that and implements its own implementation with tests and it's wastefully redundant
westurner on Hacker News
~80% branch coverage
In the thread “Coding is not solved”, replying to this comment
Helped: Human-in-the-loop, AGENTS.md, and strict sufficiency criteria like fuzzing.
Got in the way: Agents implemented redundant code and failed to close issues without verification.
… I suppose it's the same challenge as architectural drift in open source non-LLM-assisted products and the solutions are pretty much the same: give better instructions (AGENTS.md,) and use better sufficiency criteria as an engineering manager (branch test coverage, fuzzing, formal methods, TLA+), and train and pay humans to do secure code review. Sometimes the agent doesn't notice that the code already solves for that and implements its own implementation with tests and it's wastefully redundant when the code should be refactored and the tests should be refactored so that we can delete code in order to minimize bloat. Unfortunately often, just like IRL software development, the response from the agent is not sufficient to close the issue. …