korrents

What Addy Osmani thinks about coding agents

@addy-osmani · 22 positions · 0 changes of mind

Engineering leader and author who spent 14 years at Google, most of it on Chrome and Chrome DevTools, rising from software engineer to director of engineering, and who created TodoMVC and helped push Core Web Vitals.

Addy Osmani did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

5 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Addy Osmani has said — not written or endorsed by them.

  1. Our readingAI tooling has done something no earlier technology managed: pulled directors, VPs and SVPs back into building things with their own hands at the weekend.

    Their wordsOne of the things I found most exciting in the last couple of years was seeing as model qualities gotten better and and harnesses and tools have gotten better, how many people um that were directors or VPs or SVPs or any of these levels were actually rolling up their sleeves and trying things out.

    ↗From Chrome DevTools to AI Engineering, with Addy Osmaniyoutube.com 9th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  3. Our readingYou have to keep enough understanding of how a system works to fix it yourself, because the alternative is hoping and praying the agent can figure it out.

    Their wordsI think that we still need to understand enough about how things work so that if something does go wrong, we're actually able to fix it and not just hope and pray that the agent is able to figure things out.

    ↗From Chrome DevTools to AI Engineering, with Addy Osmaniyoutube.com 11th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  5. Our readingWorking with a coding agent should leave both of you better every day, and that only happens if you deliberately record what was learned and decided in the session.

    Their wordsI'm a really big fan of this idea of mutual amplification. If you are working with an agent, a coding agent, there are a lot of things that you can do to make sure that the agent is getting better every day and you as an engineer are getting better every day.

    ↗From Chrome DevTools to AI Engineering, with Addy Osmaniyoutube.com 13th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  7. Our readingLetting automated loops build everything without guardrails on blast radius and on quality is a recipe for disaster.

    Their wordsBut, simply just having your loops build everything without having some guardrails around the blast radius without having guardrails around how you think about quality, I think is a recipe for disaster.

    ↗From Chrome DevTools to AI Engineering, with Addy Osmaniyoutube.com 15th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  9. Our readingAn agent can tell you whether a thing looks correct against a spec; it cannot tell you whether the thing is any good.

    Their wordsAn agent can tell you if a thing looks correct, if it's matching a spec. It doesn't necessarily mean it can tell you what's good.

    ↗From Chrome DevTools to AI Engineering, with Addy Osmaniyoutube.com 17th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting