Context is the bottleneck for coding agents now
7 hours ago
- #AI
- #Software Development
- #Coding Agents
- Intelligence in coding agents is rapidly improving, but context remains a major bottleneck.
- Current coding agents can handle small tasks (Level 1-2 autonomy) but struggle with larger, more complex tasks (Level 3-5).
- Failures in coding agents are often due to lack of context rather than lack of intelligence.
- Programming competitions highlight intelligence but lack real-world context like business requirements or existing codebases.
- Agents need access to and understanding of various forms of context: code, documentation, architectural patterns, business requirements, and more.
- Much of the necessary context is implicit, scattered, or unwritten, making it hard for agents to access and synthesize.
- Future improvements require better context access, preprocessing, and the ability for agents to recognize and request missing context.