Evolution of the Programmer in 2024–2026

Stage 1: Zero or Near-Zero AI: maybe code completions, sometimes ask Chat questions

Stage 2: Coding agent in IDE, permissions turned on. A narrow coding agent in a sidebar asks your permission to run tools.

Stage 3: Agent in IDE, YOLO mode: Trust goes up. You turn off permissions, agent gets wider.

Stage 4: In IDE, wide agent: Your agent gradually grows to fill the screen. Code is just for diffs.

Stage 5: CLI, single agent. YOLO. Diffs scroll by. You may or may not look at them.

Stage 6: CLI, multi-agent, YOLO. You regularly use 3 to 5 parallel instances. You are very fast.

Stage 7: 10+ agents, hand-managed. You are starting to push the limits of hand-management.

Stage 8: Building your own orchestrator. You are on the frontier, automating your workflow.