Beyond simple code suggestions, 'agentic coding'—where AI plans and executes tasks autonomously—is now the trend. We explore why bolting AI onto existing editors is hitting a wall.
Imagine you are cooking a very complex dish, and you have a truly brilliant sous-chef by your side. But what if this sous-chef didn’t know the layout of the kitchen at all and only listened to short, direct commands from you? If you had to explicitly instruct them, “Chop the onions,” and then, “Now chop the carrots,” you might end up more exhausted from giving instructions than just doing the work yourself.
The way we develop software today is exactly like that. We use AI chatbots “bolted onto” existing editors like VS Code. But a new wind is blowing through the development landscape: “Agentic Coding.” This technology is completely changing the face of development.
Why Does This Matter?
The AI we have used until now has been like a “very obedient intern.” It answered questions and fixed small pieces of code. But now, it’s not just an intern; an “autonomous partner” who works hand-in-hand with you is emerging.
Agentic coding is a method where, if a developer simply provides a goal like “Build this feature,” the AI finds the necessary files, writes the code, and even runs the tests itself [Source: Top 9 AI Coding Agent Ecosystems in VS Code, Source: AI Agentic Programming: A Survey of Techniques]. This is not just a level of slightly increased productivity. The paradigm of software development itself is fundamentally changing from “me making it stitch-by-stitch” to “me reviewing and deciding on what the AI has planned” [Source: Anthropic’s superpower, Roku acquired, agentic code review].
Simple Understanding
To put it simply, if a traditional chat-based AI is like a “simple filter in a photo app,” agentic coding is like a “filmmaker who handles everything from shooting to retouching and editing.”
For example, using AI via an extension in VS Code is just adjusting the color tone of a photo. But an “Agentic IDE (Integrated Development Environment, a space equipped with all the tools for development)” is like a movie studio built from the ground up for AI. Inside this studio, the AI understands where the kitchen ingredients (the entire code repository) are, so when you say, “Make me steak for lunch today,” it handles everything: fetching the meat, grilling it, and making the sauce [Source: The VS Code vs AI Agent IDE Shift Nobody Warned You About].
If what Andrej Karpathy called “Vibecoding” (a method of repeatedly throwing prompts and checking/modifying results) is a way of constantly giving instructions to a sous-chef, agentic coding can be seen as entrusting the entire cooking process to them [Source: VibeCoding vs Agentic Coding: What’s the Difference and Which…].
Current State
Many developers are currently using AI by installing extensions in existing editors [Source: I thought I was productive in VS Code until agentic coding showed me what I was missing]. Microsoft is also attempting to change in line with this flow, such as by introducing an agent mode within VS Code [Source: A Unified Experience for all Coding Agents - Visual Studio Code].
However, there are clear limitations. Because the AI is trapped in the narrow chat box of existing editors, it has limitations in deeply understanding and modifying the context of the entire project [Source: The VS Code vs AI Agent IDE Shift Nobody Warned You About]. On the other hand, tools like “Cursor” or “Windsurf,” which were designed with AI in mind from the start, allow the AI to move through the entire code repository as if it were its own home, working freely. They are like experts who skillfully handle all the equipment in a studio [Source: 10 Best AI Coding Agents in 2026, Source: The VS Code vs AI Agent IDE Shift Nobody Warned You About].
What Happens Next?
Moving forward, the boundary between “editors that support AI” and “IDEs led by AI” will become clearer. Developers will no longer be satisfied with features that simply autocomplete lines of code. Instead, they will seek environments where AI analyzes the entire project, predicts potential issues, and autonomously performs complex multi-step tasks [Source: AI Agentic Programming: A Survey of Techniques].
Ultimately, the core skill of a developer will no longer be “how fast I can type code,” but “how sharply I can review the output produced by an AI agent and guide it in the right direction.” The evolution of tools is essentially changing the very essence of the profession of a developer [Source: Anthropic’s superpower, Roku acquired, agentic code review].
References
-
[10 Best AI Coding Agents in 2026 — Complete Guide & Comparison OpenAgents Blog](https://openagents.org/blog/posts/2026-05-21-best-ai-coding-agents) -
[Microsoft MAI-Code-1-Flash vs Claude Code: Coding Agent Strategy and Enterprise Control Windows Forum](https://windowsforum.com/threads/microsoft-mai-code-1-flash-vs-claude-code-coding-agent-strategy-and-enterprise-control.428415/) -
[Best Coding Agents for VS Code in 2026: Compared & Reviewed Kilo.ai](https://kilo.ai/articles/coding-agents-for-vscode) -
[The VS Code vs AI Agent IDE Shift Nobody Warned You About Medium](https://medium.com/@hembitec/the-vs-code-vs-ai-agent-ide-shift-nobody-warned-you-about-7fa1a5a72912) - How I configure VS Code for agentic coding - beyang.org
-
[I thought I was productive in VS Code until agentic coding showed me what I was missing XDA-Developers](https://www.xda-developers.com/agentic-coding-ruined-normal-ides-like-vs-code-zed-pycharm/) -
[Top 9 AI Coding Agent Ecosystems in VS Code Medium](https://medium.com/@hasanmcse/top-9-ai-coding-agent-ecosystems-in-vs-code-2d3dbf13806b) -
[Agentic coding deserves more than a chat box bolted onto VS Code Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48571811) - Download Visual Studio Code
- Qoder - The Agentic Coding Platform
- VibeCoding vs Agentic Coding: What’s the Difference and Which to Choose?
- Claude Code vs Cursor Tab (2026): Autocomplete Comparison
-
[Anthropic’s superpower, Roku acquired, agentic code review TLDR Tech](https://tldr.tech/tech/2026-06-16) -
[Agentic coding made programming fun again Devas Life](https://www.devas.life/agentic-coding-made-programming-fun-again/) - A Unified Experience for all Coding Agents - Visual Studio Code Blog
-
[How I Used Agentic Mode in VS Code Insiders to Develop an App LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-i-used-agentic-mode-vs-code-insiders-develop-app-thangavelu-iknbf/) -
[From Code Completion to Autonomous Development: The Evolution of Agentic Coding Dev.to](https://dev.to/deniskisina/from-code-completion-to-autonomous-development-the-evolution-of-agentic-coding-223m) -
[AI Agentic Programming: A Survey of Techniques arXiv](https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.11126) - GitHub Introduces Coding Agent For GitHub Copilot
-
[Build with agents in VS Code Visual Studio Code Docs](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/agents/overview)
- In the chat approach, the AI can execute terminal commands
- An agentic IDE is designed from the start so that AI and code are organically connected
- Traditional editors are much faster
- A method where AI completes the deployment process by itself
- A method of building by repeatedly modifying prompts and receiving feedback
- A method where no code is written at all
- Simple syntax checking
- Supporting code copy-pasting
- Autonomous performance of multi-step tasks like planning, execution, testing, and deployment