Two things about that. On the one hand, I couldn't believe coding would be replaced when I started Agent Smith in January 2026. On the other hand, I wanted proof.

After 500k lines of code in Agent Smith, none of which I wrote by hand, I have to admit it: coding is more or less solved. That doesn't mean architects, developers, DevOps people and everyone else aren't needed anymore. I think they're needed more than ever.

Just implementing something isn't good enough. The spec has to point to sensible approaches and procedures, and the code has to be well structured (in my view, at least). Then the specs can simply run in parallel all night.

So my actual work on Agent Smith isn't coding at all. It's deciding what the right thing to build is, and how, in terms of design and architecture. I don't even review the code. But I do test it: 10k tests, a harness, a commit hook that blocks a spec while the suite is red, the whole story.

And unfortunately, that works pretty well. I also think last year's programming was more romantic :-D