A discipline of agentic development
Quality assurance
Quality is not a gate at the end of the road. It is a habit the whole team shares, and the only way speed and confidence can grow together.
When agents write code quickly, reviewing it all by eye becomes impossible. Teams that keep up are the ones where quality is built into the work itself: clear expectations, tests that describe behaviour, and reviews that focus on what matters.
I help teams find a balance that suits them. Not chasing coverage numbers, but making sure that "done" means the same thing to everyone, including the agents.
Three ideas
Define done together
A shared understanding of what "finished" means is the strongest quality tool there is, for people and agents alike.
Tests as conversation
Good tests describe how a system should behave. They tell agents what to respect and give people confidence to change things.
Review what matters
Let automation catch the routine, so human attention goes to intent, design and the things only people can judge.
In practice
- Agreeing on a definition of done that the whole team, agents included, works towards
- Test-driven habits where they add the most value
- Automated checks and reviews that take routine work off people's plates
- Looking critically at agent output, and learning from what goes wrong
Questions to start with
- What does "done" mean in your team today?
- Where do bugs usually slip through, and why?
- How much of your review time goes to things a machine could check?