Right now I think there is an edge to how you construct prompts and config files. There is a large difference between "modify f() to do..." and "modify f() to do... Review the current variables and make sure they are still used consistent with their naming. Look for unreachable and dead code. Examine callers and called functions for side effects from the introduced changes...".

I don't think that will make much difference in a year.

Not OP, but I generally agree. Models are powerful enough now to reliably instruct other models. They don’t need fancy tools or IDEs, just the command line.

With deterministic workflows, type-safe languages and test suites, agentic loops pretty much “can’t fail”. They will continue until the types resolve, the tests pass, and the project requirements are deterministically met.

By that point it’s literally just a case of typing a prompt in to a text field, and waiting.