Tight feedback loops are critical DX for eXtreme Programmers, and they help coding agents immensely.

I use the same thing I learned way back at ThoughtWorkers University – a single command that comprehensively verifies that the build is green. I expose it as top-level DX, which for my current project is pnpm green. My agents call this frequently.

When you feel an urge to do manual testing, debug an error yourself, or anything else that isn’t automated, stop and instead improve “green” until you feel safe again.

Make green as fast as possible – coding agents can be way faster than humans, so waiting 30 seconds for an integration test is a huge delay relatively speaking. The test pyramid is back!

Good DX will get you very far, even before you get into workflow-land and start building quality-focused processes deeply into your coding agents.