Tom Smykowski

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Why Agentic Engineering needs a baseline

“Vibe coding” became a joke because skipping steps feels fine until the bill arrives: regressions, security holes, and code nobody wants to touch.

Agentic Engineering (for me) is not “never use AI.” It is: keep the same engineering obligations — reproducibility, reviewability, rollback — while you change how fast you draft.

My baseline is boring on purpose:

  • One clear owner for the change and its risk.
  • Tests or checks where they matter, not everywhere for theater.
  • A definition of “done” that includes maintainers, not only the author.

If your team cannot explain what broke and how to undo it, you are not moving faster — you are borrowing time from next week.

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