Comment by resonious
7 days ago
I think one of the tricks is to just stop using the agent as soon as you see signs of funny business. If it starts BSing me with failing tests, I just turn it off immediately and git reset (maybe after taking a quick peek)
Yeah I make maybe two or three attempts at getting it to write a plan that it is able to follow coherently. But after that I pull the escape hatch and *gasp* program by hand.
I've made this mistake of doubling down after a few initial failures to solve an issue, by trying to make this super duper comprehensive and highly detailed and awesome plan that it will finally be able to implement correctly. But it just gets worse and worse the more I try, because it fundamentally is not understanding what is going on, so it will inevitably find an opportunity to go massively off rails, and the further down you lead it the more impressible the derailment will be.
My experience is that going around in endless circles with the model is just a waste of time when you could have just done it yourself in the time you've wasted.