Tell the agent what to leave out

Hey,

In chapter 1 of his CodeTV workshop, Mike Ryan asks a coding agent for a tiny to-do app. Then he lists what not to build: no persistence, no routing, no extra features.

His reason:

"If you're not specific, coding agents are going to try and fill in the gaps on their own and come up with details that might surprise you."

Try it on your next small task. Say what you want, what you don't want, and how you'll know it's done.

Joel

P.S. Mike's workshop, Agentic Frontend Engineering, runs Nov 9–13: https://codetv.dev/workshops/agentic-frontend-engineering