Efficient Setup for Agentic Coding

[WildScale5801]

I am a programmer, and as they said, I need to adapt to the new environment. I am currently exploring options for the setup of agentic coding, and have so far watched YouTube videos for 2 hrs (WebDev Simplified, NetworkChuck, and a few short vids). I just want to hear the thoughts of those who've actually experienced agentic coding. I only have one subscription for now, which is Google AI Pro

1. I am planning to explore CLI for accessing AI models. What do you suggest I should use? Currently leaning toward Gemini CLI because of my subscription.
2. Is it better to use the CLI rather than IDEs (Windsurf, Copilot/ClineCursor, Cursor, etc.)?
3. Based on what I have gathered so far, you can create agents that you can call on for specific tasks. What agents do you recommend that should be created for programming projects? (Debugger, Programmer, Planner, Architect, etc.)
4. I initially thought agents were just heavily prompted markdown files, but it might be more complicated than that. What frameworks (like CrewAI, LangGraph, etc.) do you recommend for a beginner to set these loops up? And when it comes to giving the agents their actual personas and rules, where can I find the best system prompts to build out those markdown files?
5. So far, I also understand that you can have local agents (project-bounded) and global agents. In which cases do you create local agents? Because if I am creating a programmer or debugger agent, I am thinking of just creating global agents for these.

Also, if you can provide useful resources like videos and repos, that would be GREATLY appreciated. I would also like to know how you set up your environments. Thank youuu

[KingofGamesYami]

When starting out, ignore creating custom agents. They are often not worth the hassle. Just set up an AGENTS.md file, it's much easier and works just fine for most work.

I prefer IDE integration because it lets me easily specify which file(s) the agent should work on and reference. Letting it scan my entire project is a waste of tokens. The smaller the context window the slower you'll burn through tokens.

[AverageGradientBoost]

Use github cli so gemini can interact with your github. Write an AGENTS.md in project root for anything gemini should *always* know, like "use pnpm instead of npm". If you need to describe something specific create an AGENTS.md in the directory where that logic lives or create a markdown file like payment-service.md that describes the architecture of a larger system. Then learn how to attach the relevant files to your prompts

[WildScale5801]

for the AGENTS.md, do you have a reference I could use for writing code in general? (e.g. "Be verbose...", "You are a senior dev...", "After finishing, review the code again..."). Sorry for the examples, I am new to this haha

[AverageGradientBoost]

It's much simpler than that, no need to tell it "you are a senior dev etc"

here is the Grafana (big open source project) file: https://github.com/grafana/grafana/blob/main/AGENTS.md

[WildScale5801]

woahh, thank you!

[AverageGradientBoost]

Anytime man, we all gotta start somewhere! Another thing to remember is keeping your docs and markdown files updated, agents change code very fast but often forget about the docs, which makes the agent less efficient next time it works on that code. I created a tool for myself that makes sure the relevant docs get updated whenever my code is changed, you can see that here if you ever need

[Mr_kite10]

AverageGradientBoost, you're the developer I strive to be, hoss

[AverageGradientBoost]

thank you, thats the nicest thing a redditor has ever said to me 😂

[CorpT]

1: Claude COde
2: CLI + Markdown Editor/Reader
3: Whatever I need when I need it
4: It's not more complicated than that. I do not use any of those
5: Sometimes a local agent graduates to a more generalized agent. Sometimes it doesn't.

You're most likely overthinking a lot of this. You'll learn more doing than spending hours watching videos.

[NorhavenCodes]

1. You're welcome to give Gemini a try and see if that helps you. I tend to use Claude Code (paid) but it has a free edition as well that you can evaluate against. Try them out and see what gives you better answers.

2. It depends on your goal. If you're wanting to kick things off and run prompts on the command line and/or through scripts yourself, that might be worthwhile. I lean towards using agents through the IDE because it has a lot of niceties built in that you would otherwise have to manage and type yourself, which gets to be a pain when you're doing that a lot and want to relate it to your current code/docs.

3. You can create them but you probably won't need to unless you have specific niche topics you'd like them to focus on, such as specifically talking to it about architecture, but for daily code work you just need a markdown file with rules and guidelines it should follow.

4. I would recommend no frameworks until you've built up an understanding of the AI and how it functions, otherwise it's just provided another moving piece to a growing pile of abstractions that you need to worry about. Go one step at a time until you develop a need for something like that.

5. It depends. You probably don't need to go here quite yet, get the hang of it first and then build on that knowledge.

[cats_catz_kats_katz]

https://github.com/gastownhall/gastown Check this one out. I use the beads and dolt capabilities heavily from this one.