saved
Coding agents are becoming runtimes
gist
Can Celik argues that coding-agent CLIs have become developer infrastructure. They now live in repositories, terminals, CI, and wrappers, so project instructions, lifecycle state, and hooks need shared contracts instead of per-vendor files. Labs can keep proprietary models and pricing; the process in a developer's terminal is part of the environment other tools compose. Herdr sits below the agent, reading panes when signals are missing, and asks agents to expose a small working/blocked/idle lifecycle so supervisors do not reverse-engineer every UI.
ideas
- Coding-agent CLIs are runtimes. Pause, resume, compact, fail, recover, and keep working while the developer is elsewhere is process lifecycle, not chat.
- Standardize instruction files now. AGENTS.md is one shared file; CLAUDE.md import and symlink workarounds are how format drift starts.
- Ownership splits at the terminal. Labs own models, APIs, and subscription terms; the process in the developer environment needs stable contracts other tools can compose.
- Hooks are not a lifecycle. Policy gates, notifications, and tool intercepts still leave working, blocked, idle, permission, and interruption unobservable to a supervisor.
- Lifecycle beats screen-scraping. Terminal activity and UI text break; verified working/blocked/idle signals plus hot-reloadable manifests are the bridge until agents expose the contract.
quotes
“But the CLI that runs inside a developer’s terminal is part of the developer environment.”
“That workaround works, and it is how standards drift begins.”
“A hook surface can be powerful and still fail to provide a portable lifecycle contract.”
“Agents should make their basic contracts visible, durable, and boring.”