My coding agent runs for an hour; my job became saying yes to it

Cold_Arm3819 · reddit · 2026-08-25

A hardware engineer describes life with long-running coding agents: tasks now take 20 minutes to 2 hours, and the long ones are satisfying — but the agent made him less free, since it stops at random points to ask questions and idles if he's away, sometimes wasting a whole night.

He tried auto-approve (only covers yes/no), phone notifications (same ceiling), and a status light (tells you it needs you, not why). His fix was hardware: a small screen rendering the live session and multiple-choice questions, answered with a knob — with Claude, Codex and Hermes all on the same portable screen. Key lesson: the blocker isn't model output, it's runs stalling unnoticed; whatever tool you build must answer more than 'yes'.

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