Uncle Bob Rethinks Agent Harnesses: Models Have Gotten Too Good to Over-Constrain

generativist · x · 2026-09-08

Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob) says he's spent months testing the hypothesis that coding agents need strict deterministic harnesses — Gherkin specs, unit tests, mutation tests — to follow a rigid process. But with models improving astronomically, he now suspects he's "vastly over constraining them," a notable reflection on whether agent engineering scaffolding still pays off as capabilities rise.

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