# Agentic Engineering Patterns by Simon Willison

5 Hacker News commenters recommended Agentic Engineering Patterns by Simon Willison and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended for responsibly applying AI in software development. Main caveat: critics say the patterns go out of date quickly.

## Why people recommend it

- Trusted author; good place to start (2 comments): "simon's agentic series is a good place to start" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48486436)) "even though I love Simon's contributions" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47249176))

## What people warn about

- Content goes out of date quickly (2 comments): "Without this, I believe the book's content will be less relevant in 3 months" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49405572)) "These patterns are all out of date by at least a year" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47253360))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [The Mythical Man-Month by Fred Brooks](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mythical-man-month.md): 56 recommend
- [Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppmann](https://hackerapproved.com/p/designing-data-intensive-applications.md): 37 recommend
- [A Philosophy of Software Design by John Ousterhout](https://hackerapproved.com/p/a-philosophy-of-software-design.md): 28 recommend
- [Code Complete by Steve McConnell](https://hackerapproved.com/p/code-complete.md): 14 recommend
- [The Architecture of Open Source Applications by Amy Brown and Greg Wilson](https://hackerapproved.com/p/architecture-of-open-source-applications.md): 13 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Agentic Engineering Patterns by Simon Willison", https://hackerapproved.com/p/agentic-engineering-patterns/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).