Work with coding agents like a dev team and check behaviour, not code
Since late September his agents have made about 970 commits to one of his projects and he hasn't read a line of the code; he checks what they built by its behaviour, as he would with a team.
Source
sadilek on Hacker News · 2026-10-23
Written in our own words. Credit to the original author. Link checked 2026-10-24.
What they did
Since late September his agents have made about 970 commits to one of his projects and he hasn't read a line of the code; he checks what they built by its behaviour, as he would with a team.
Result (as claimed)
The project keeps moving while he acts as the product owner.
Tools they used
Cost: Pricing depends on the tools you pick; check each official pricing page.
Set it up
Pick a contained repo or task
Start on a branch or side project where mistakes are cheap.
Install and configure
Set up AI coding agents. Read what it can run on your machine and limit permissions where possible.
Run it on a real task
Give it a well-scoped issue and let it work. Review the diff like any pull request.
Add guardrails
Keep tests and CI in the loop, and never let an agent push to main or touch production secrets unattended.
Copy the full setup prompt
Paste into your agent and it will walk you through the setup, asking before anything that sends, posts or spends.
You are helping me set up this AI use case end to end in Claude Code. Goal: Work with coding agents like a dev team and check behaviour, not code What the original author did: Since late September his agents have made about 970 commits to one of his projects and he hasn't read a line of the code; he checks what they built by its behaviour, as he would with a team. Reported result (as claimed by the author): The project keeps moving while he acts as the product owner. Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50205312 Tools they used: AI coding agents Category: Dev & ops Please: 1. Ask me 3 short questions about my situation (accounts I have, budget, what I want the output to look like). 2. Propose a step-by-step plan using these tools or cheaper alternatives, with the time and cost of each step. Use official pricing pages; say "check pricing" if unsure. 3. Then do the setup with me one step at a time, waiting for my OK before anything that sends messages, posts publicly, spends money or deletes data. 4. Finish with a checklist to run it again next time.
You are helping me set up this AI use case end to end in Codex. Goal: Work with coding agents like a dev team and check behaviour, not code What the original author did: Since late September his agents have made about 970 commits to one of his projects and he hasn't read a line of the code; he checks what they built by its behaviour, as he would with a team. Reported result (as claimed by the author): The project keeps moving while he acts as the product owner. Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50205312 Tools they used: AI coding agents Category: Dev & ops Please: 1. Ask me 3 short questions about my situation (accounts I have, budget, what I want the output to look like). 2. Propose a step-by-step plan using these tools or cheaper alternatives, with the time and cost of each step. Use official pricing pages; say "check pricing" if unsure. 3. Then do the setup with me one step at a time, waiting for my OK before anything that sends messages, posts publicly, spends money or deletes data. 4. Finish with a checklist to run it again next time.
You are helping me set up this AI use case end to end in Grok Bot. Goal: Work with coding agents like a dev team and check behaviour, not code What the original author did: Since late September his agents have made about 970 commits to one of his projects and he hasn't read a line of the code; he checks what they built by its behaviour, as he would with a team. Reported result (as claimed by the author): The project keeps moving while he acts as the product owner. Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50205312 Tools they used: AI coding agents Category: Dev & ops Please: 1. Ask me 3 short questions about my situation (accounts I have, budget, what I want the output to look like). 2. Propose a step-by-step plan using these tools or cheaper alternatives, with the time and cost of each step. Use official pricing pages; say "check pricing" if unsure. 3. Then do the setup with me one step at a time, waiting for my OK before anything that sends messages, posts publicly, spends money or deletes data. 4. Finish with a checklist to run it again next time.
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