I think they're trying to implement every management fad with AI agents and see if improves performance.
Personally, I have tried pair programming, and it hasn't really felt like something that works, for various reasons - the main one is that I (and my partner) have complex thought processes in my head, that is difficult and cumbersome to articulate, and to an onlooker, it looks like I'm randomly changing code.
I worked at Pivotal Labs where hundreds of developers pair programmed every day, all day. It works, the trick is learning how to get out of your head and communicate with your pair in a way that two brains works better than one.
Pair programming works best when you are tasked with a problem that’s actually beyond your current abilities. You spend less time in your head because you are exploring a solution space for the first time.
If this approach turns out to be valuable, it's unlikely that it has anything to do with having multiple actual agents, but rather that it's valuable to have 2 configurations (system prompt, model, temp, context pruning, toolset etc.) of inside the same agent being swapped back and forth.
Yeah maybe! Right now I find it useful to use different agent harnesses but as the models get better (and the agent harnesses simpler), it might be possible to get the same result with the same model. Would be cool to experiment with open-source models
Nice - I do something similar in a semi manual way.
I do find Codex very good at reviewing work marked as completed by Claude, especially when I get Claude to write up its work with a why,where & how doc.
It’s very rare Claude has fully completed the task successfully and Codex doesn’t find issues.
I find both to be true. I use Claude for most of the implementation, and Codex always catches mistakes. Always. But both of them benefit from being asked if they’re sure they did everything.
The PLAN.md question is the one worth pulling on. Once the plan lives in git or the PR it's already downstream of intent and whoever defined what to build has already handed off. The harder problem is giving agents access to the original intent, not just the implementation plan derived from it. When there's drift between what was planned and what got built, a git-resident PLAN.md makes it hard to trace back to why the decision was made in the first place.
The plan will always be downstream of intent though. At least in git you can track the evolution of the plan over time and hopefully annotate the rationale for changes in direction.
I've always wondered what it would be like if we reversed the roles. I remember people claiming they had gotten better results if an agent started asking the questions.
What if we had an agent-to-agent network that contacted the human as a source of truth whenever they needed it. Keep a list of employees that are experts in said skill, then let them answer 1-2 questions.
I had a prototype where the agent primarily worked autonomously, and it could solicit human feedback via tool calls. But yes that pattern does feel like it is hastening the apocalypse.
Interesting! Feels like a good way to write docs/memories. What I like about loop is that it runs the interactive TUIs so you can answer questions in both sessions (not just the main worker). It is not human multiplayer though (but that would be cool).
I like this idea, I’ll experiment with it as part of a brainstorming skill to make the agents ask clarifying questions (to each other and to the human in the loop).
I agree! Right now it is leveraging the Codex App Server, which is open-source and very well implemented, but using Claude Code Channels is probably a bit hacky.
The good thing is that it establishes a direct connection so it's already much better than having one agent spawn the other and wait for its output, or read/write to a shared .md file -- but it would be cool to make it work for all agent harnesses.
You can also create a skill for reviewing (which calls gemini/codex as a command line tool) and set instructions on how and when to use. Very flexible.
Yes, but what’s cool about loop is that it runs the interactive TUIs and establishes a direct connection between them. You can steer and answer questions in both sessions, not just from the main worker.
"Letting the agents loop can result in more changes than expected, which are usually welcome..."
If "more changes than expected" means "out of scope", then I disagree. Those types of changes are exactly one of the things that's best to avoid whether code is being written by a person or an LLM.
It doesn’t mean that they are always out of scope, rather than the reviewer can be nitpicking (like humans do) and instead of addressing the comment in a follow-up PR, the change gets addressed in the same PR. So not necessarily out of scope, but it can add up and make it harder for a human to review.
That’s why I’m wondering if we should instruct the agents to act more like humans would: if the change can be done in a follow-up PR, this is probably what an experienced engineer would do.
Yes, the goal is the same. This plugin is similar to the Codex gstack skill.
What makes loop different is that it lets Claude and Codex talk to each other directly (receiving messages from Claude via the Codex App Server and from Codex via Claude Code Channels). I believe this approach works even better than having one agent spawn the other and wait for its output, or read/write to a shared file.
I think the A2A space is wide open. Great to see this approach using App Server and Channels.
I tried built something similar (at a high level) for a more B2C use case for OpenClaw https://github.com/agentlink-dev/agentlink users. Currently I think the major Agents have not fully owned the "wake the Agent" use case fully.
Regardless this is a very cool approach. All the best.
I prefer claude for generation / creativity, codex for bull-headed, accurate complaining and audit. Very rarely claude just doesn't "get it" and it makes sense to have codex direct edit. But generally I think it's happiest and best used complaining.
Is there a prize yet for the most absurd application of AI? Pair programming seems a fair first step in the quest for this holiest of grails. How about an agentic implementation of the House of AI Lords?
This is interesting for code, but I'm curious about agent-to-agent coordination for ops tasks — like one agent detecting a database anomaly and another auto-remediating it
I think a lot of people/companies are integrating workflows like that, it's just separate from the point of agent pair coding.
The interesting thing here is agents working together to be better at a single task. Not agents integrated in a workflow. There's a lot of opportunity in "if this then that" scenarios that has nothing to do with two agents communicating on one single element of a problem, it's just Agent detect -> agent solve (-> Agent review? Agent deploy? Etc.)
Multi turn review of code written by cc reviewed by codex works pretty well. Been one of the only ways to be able to deliver larger scoped features without constant bugs. I've seen them do 10-15 rounds of fix and review until complete.
Also implemented this as a gh action, works well for sentry to gh to auto triage to fix pr.
Yes I’ve had a lot of success with this too. I found with prompt tightening I seldom do more than 5 rounds now, but it also does an explicit plan step with plan review.
Currently I’m authoring with codex and reviewing with opus.
Even with the same model (--self-review), that makes a huge difference, and immediately highlights how bad the first iterations of an LLM output can be.
I think they're trying to implement every management fad with AI agents and see if improves performance.
Personally, I have tried pair programming, and it hasn't really felt like something that works, for various reasons - the main one is that I (and my partner) have complex thought processes in my head, that is difficult and cumbersome to articulate, and to an onlooker, it looks like I'm randomly changing code.
I worked at Pivotal Labs where hundreds of developers pair programmed every day, all day. It works, the trick is learning how to get out of your head and communicate with your pair in a way that two brains works better than one.
I agree, it isn't for everyone.
Pair programming works best when you are tasked with a problem that’s actually beyond your current abilities. You spend less time in your head because you are exploring a solution space for the first time.
I’m curious whether anyone has measured this systematically. Right now most of the evidence for multi-agent setups still feels anecdotal.
And expensive, exactly the way a pay per use product would push its customers…
“It’s not working well enough!” We tell them. They respond with “Have you tried using it more?”
Back in 2024 I read a study saying: "Ask 4 LLMs the same question, if they all give you the same answer there is some 95-99% chance its correct"
Soooo... Its not just greed. There is something there.
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Haha yeah... Wait until they start jacking up the subscription prices
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Completely with you on this! But then we need to define the cirteria for comparison. Might not be that easy unfortunately
If this approach turns out to be valuable, it's unlikely that it has anything to do with having multiple actual agents, but rather that it's valuable to have 2 configurations (system prompt, model, temp, context pruning, toolset etc.) of inside the same agent being swapped back and forth.
Yeah maybe! Right now I find it useful to use different agent harnesses but as the models get better (and the agent harnesses simpler), it might be possible to get the same result with the same model. Would be cool to experiment with open-source models
Nice - I do something similar in a semi manual way.
I do find Codex very good at reviewing work marked as completed by Claude, especially when I get Claude to write up its work with a why,where & how doc.
It’s very rare Claude has fully completed the task successfully and Codex doesn’t find issues.
I created the first version of loop after getting tired of doing this manually!
I’m going to take a look today!
Do you see any benefit in doing this locally versus having Codex review the PR Claude generates?
Claude is also good at that. I made a habit of asking "are you sure?" after a complex task. It usually says it overlooked something.
I find both to be true. I use Claude for most of the implementation, and Codex always catches mistakes. Always. But both of them benefit from being asked if they’re sure they did everything.
The PLAN.md question is the one worth pulling on. Once the plan lives in git or the PR it's already downstream of intent and whoever defined what to build has already handed off. The harder problem is giving agents access to the original intent, not just the implementation plan derived from it. When there's drift between what was planned and what got built, a git-resident PLAN.md makes it hard to trace back to why the decision was made in the first place.
The plan will always be downstream of intent though. At least in git you can track the evolution of the plan over time and hopefully annotate the rationale for changes in direction.
Fair point. Git helps track how the plan changes, but it doesn’t always capture the original intent behind it.
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I've always wondered what it would be like if we reversed the roles. I remember people claiming they had gotten better results if an agent started asking the questions.
What if we had an agent-to-agent network that contacted the human as a source of truth whenever they needed it. Keep a list of employees that are experts in said skill, then let them answer 1-2 questions.
Or are we speeding up our replacement like this?
What if a search engine queried YOU? That’s the question (I guess).
That's how they worked in Soviet Russia, right?
I had a prototype where the agent primarily worked autonomously, and it could solicit human feedback via tool calls. But yes that pattern does feel like it is hastening the apocalypse.
Interesting! Feels like a good way to write docs/memories. What I like about loop is that it runs the interactive TUIs so you can answer questions in both sessions (not just the main worker). It is not human multiplayer though (but that would be cool).
I like this idea, I’ll experiment with it as part of a brainstorming skill to make the agents ask clarifying questions (to each other and to the human in the loop).
Hint: how did these humans become experts in that area? Definitely not by using AI.
The vibes are great. But there’s a need for more science on this multi agent thing.
I agree! Right now it is leveraging the Codex App Server, which is open-source and very well implemented, but using Claude Code Channels is probably a bit hacky.
The good thing is that it establishes a direct connection so it's already much better than having one agent spawn the other and wait for its output, or read/write to a shared .md file -- but it would be cool to make it work for all agent harnesses.
Open to ideas! The repo is open-source.
This one: https://github.com/openai/codex/tree/main/codex-rs/app-serve...
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You can also create a skill for reviewing (which calls gemini/codex as a command line tool) and set instructions on how and when to use. Very flexible.
Yes, but what’s cool about loop is that it runs the interactive TUIs and establishes a direct connection between them. You can steer and answer questions in both sessions, not just from the main worker.
I have been trying a similar setup since last week using https://rjcorwin.github.io/cook/
Oh, that's cool!
"Letting the agents loop can result in more changes than expected, which are usually welcome..."
If "more changes than expected" means "out of scope", then I disagree. Those types of changes are exactly one of the things that's best to avoid whether code is being written by a person or an LLM.
It doesn’t mean that they are always out of scope, rather than the reviewer can be nitpicking (like humans do) and instead of addressing the comment in a follow-up PR, the change gets addressed in the same PR. So not necessarily out of scope, but it can add up and make it harder for a human to review.
That’s why I’m wondering if we should instruct the agents to act more like humans would: if the change can be done in a follow-up PR, this is probably what an experienced engineer would do.
This is very reminiscent of the review-loop Claude Code plugin.
https://github.com/hamelsmu/claude-review-loop
Yes, the goal is the same. This plugin is similar to the Codex gstack skill.
What makes loop different is that it lets Claude and Codex talk to each other directly (receiving messages from Claude via the Codex App Server and from Codex via Claude Code Channels). I believe this approach works even better than having one agent spawn the other and wait for its output, or read/write to a shared file.
I think the A2A space is wide open. Great to see this approach using App Server and Channels. I tried built something similar (at a high level) for a more B2C use case for OpenClaw https://github.com/agentlink-dev/agentlink users. Currently I think the major Agents have not fully owned the "wake the Agent" use case fully. Regardless this is a very cool approach. All the best.
Cool! Thank you.
I prefer claude for generation / creativity, codex for bull-headed, accurate complaining and audit. Very rarely claude just doesn't "get it" and it makes sense to have codex direct edit. But generally I think it's happiest and best used complaining.
Is there a prize yet for the most absurd application of AI? Pair programming seems a fair first step in the quest for this holiest of grails. How about an agentic implementation of the House of AI Lords?
This is interesting for code, but I'm curious about agent-to-agent coordination for ops tasks — like one agent detecting a database anomaly and another auto-remediating it
I think a lot of people/companies are integrating workflows like that, it's just separate from the point of agent pair coding.
The interesting thing here is agents working together to be better at a single task. Not agents integrated in a workflow. There's a lot of opportunity in "if this then that" scenarios that has nothing to do with two agents communicating on one single element of a problem, it's just Agent detect -> agent solve (-> Agent review? Agent deploy? Etc.)
JDS wrote about this https://jdsemrau.substack.com/p/pair-programming-superbill-w...
Multi turn review of code written by cc reviewed by codex works pretty well. Been one of the only ways to be able to deliver larger scoped features without constant bugs. I've seen them do 10-15 rounds of fix and review until complete.
Also implemented this as a gh action, works well for sentry to gh to auto triage to fix pr.
How do you do this? Are you just switching between clis? Or is there a tool that uses the models in that way?
Yes I’ve had a lot of success with this too. I found with prompt tightening I seldom do more than 5 rounds now, but it also does an explicit plan step with plan review.
Currently I’m authoring with codex and reviewing with opus.
Good reminder: don't forget the plan review!
I systematically use reviewers agents in Swival: https://swival.dev/pages/reviews.html
Even with the same model (--self-review), that makes a huge difference, and immediately highlights how bad the first iterations of an LLM output can be.
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The circle of slop.
Let's burn the planet twice faster while doubling our token costs.
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