Chapter 8 - From Task to Momentum¶
Plan with me, delegate to the agent, keep the steering wheel.
The single most useful pattern I've learned is this loop:
- Talk. Describe the problem to Copilot in plain language. Argue with it. Let it ask clarifying questions. Let yourself answer them, half the value is that the act of explaining sharpens your own thinking.
- Plan. Co-produce a task list. Small tasks. Independently testable. Each one with a clear definition of done.
- Assign. The toil tasks, the ones with low judgement content and high typing content, go to agents. Boilerplate. Repetitive refactors. Migrating one pattern to another across many files. Drafting the obvious test cases.
- Guide. While the agent runs, I work on the parts that need me. I steer with comments, with examples, with corrections. I bring creativity, innovation, and domain expertise. The agent brings throughput.
- Review. Every line. Every time. No exceptions. I am the merge gate.
- Ship. Together.
This is what turns a task list into momentum. The old model said: pick one task, finish it, pick the next. The new model says: start several threads, keep the high-judgement one in your hands, let the agents carry the rest, and converge.
The trap to avoid: delegating the thinking. The agent is fantastic at the part of the job that is repeatable. It is not great at the part of the job that requires you to know your users, your codebase, and your business. Keep those parts. Defend them.