WTF is Agentic Engineering?
Professional software development with coding agents, where the developer still specifies, verifies and owns the result.
Also called: vibe engineering
TL;DR
Vibe coding is letting the AI write code you never read. Agentic engineering is the disciplined opposite: you use coding agents heavily, but you give them the right tools, describe problems precisely, and check their work until you're confident it's correct.
How it works
Coding agents run tools in a loop and, crucially, can execute the code they write, which lets them iterate toward software that demonstrably works. The engineer's job shifts to deciding what to build, supplying tools and context, specifying problems at the right level of detail, and verifying results (tests, review, running the code). Simon Willison maintains a guide of agentic engineering patterns built around these practices.
Origin
- Coined / introduced by
- Developer community; championed by Simon Willison
- When
- Feb 2026
- Story
- Won out over Willison's earlier proposal, 'vibe engineering' (Oct 2025), as the name for responsible AI-assisted development.