alt Hacker NewsI also sympathize with that approach, and found it sometimes better than agents. I believe some of the agentic IDEs are missing a "contained mode".
Let me select lines in my code which you are allowed to edit in this prompt and nothing else, for these "add a function that does x" without starting to run amok
Yes. And some way of using an instructions file. Because interacting with an agent in a tiny plugin window without use of "agents.md" or some sort of persistent prompt you can adjust retry etc is horrible.
Now it's "please add one unit test for Foobar()" and it goes away and thinks for 2 minues and does nothing then I point it to where the FooBar() which it didn't find and then adds a test method then I change the name to one I like better but now the AI change wasn't "accepted"(?) so the thing is borked...
I think the UX for agents is important and ...this can't be it.