Agentic Coding
Agentic coding is the umbrella term for autonomous, multi-step coding workflows in which an LLM-driven agent plans, executes (file edits, shell commands, test runs, tool calls), observes results, and self-corrects within a single task envelope. It is distinct from "AI-assisted coding," which includes simpler completions like inline autocomplete and one-turn chat answers; the defining features of agentic coding are the iteration loop and the breadth of the tool surface. In practice, agentic coding is the workflow that coding agents — Cursor agent mode, Claude Code, Cline, Aider, Devin, Replit Agent — are designed to run, and it is the workflow that benchmarks like SWE-Bench, Aider Polyglot, and Terminal-Bench attempt to measure.
Example
An agent receives "fix the failing tests in auth.ts." It reads the file, runs the test command, parses the failure output, identifies the broken assertion, edits the source, re-runs the tests to confirm the fix, and reports back with a diff. If the second run still fails, it iterates — adjusting the fix or expanding scope — without further human prompting between steps. The full loop, not any single edit, is what makes the workflow agentic.
Put this into practice
Build polished, copy-ready prompts in under 60 seconds with SurePrompts.
Try SurePrompts