Simon Willison's 'Agentic Engineering Patterns' Guide Crystallizes a New Discipline: 'Code Is Now Inexpensive, Preserve Domain Expertise'

simonwillison.net·low signal

Willison's evolving guide reframes professional software work around coding agents (Claude Code, Codex), with two foundational principles: code is now cheap to generate, so developers should retain the domain knowledge and aim agents at routine implementation. Published as a living 'guide' format with chapters updated over time rather than dated blog posts. It's one of the first attempts by a respected practitioner to codify agentic engineering as a teachable discipline — directly relevant to anyone orchestrating agents daily rather than hand-writing code.