'Capability gaslighting' is real—but not in agentic engineering, where code is consistent

PawelHuryn · x · 2026-09-25

Maggie Appleton (GitHub Next) coined "capability gaslighting": models impress you on one task then fail on another, making you feel deceived. Pawel Huryn adds a distinction: in agentic engineering it barely applies—mistakes are checkable and answers often binary, so code performance is very consistent. Taste and design are where gaslighting lives, since nothing flags wrong answers and mistakes are hard to articulate.

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