Agent-First Coding Is Here. What It Actually Means for Developers in 2026 (opens in new tab)

Something has quietly changed in how working developers write code. If you ask senior engineers at most tech companies what their day looks like, they will tell you they spend less time typing and more time describing. Less time on Stack Overflow and more time reviewing diffs that a tool produced. This change has a name. It is called agent-first coding. And it is the biggest workflow shift in software development since the move from terminals to graphical editors. A lot of articles about it a...