Agentic Engineering Patterns
Agentic Engineering Patterns by Simon Willisonby Simon Willison
Shares rank 12 of 21 software engineering books by recommenders
Recommended for responsibly applying AI in software development. Main caveat: critics say the patterns go out of date quickly.
Recommended for responsibly applying AI in software development. Main caveat: critics say the patterns go out of date quickly.
7 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 71%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 2.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Trusted author; good place to start
“simon's agentic series is a good place to start”
Comment from 11 Jun 2026 in “Policy on the AI Exponential” “even though I love Simon's contributions”
Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Agentic Engineering Patterns”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Content goes out of date quickly
“Without this, I believe the book's content will be less relevant in 3 months”
Comment from 23 Aug 2026 in “Software Engineering in the Agentic Era” “These patterns are all out of date by at least a year”
Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Agentic Engineering Patterns”
Other software engineering books people recommend
The four most recommended other software engineering books, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Mythical Man-Monthby Fred Brooks | 56 | 3 | 95% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Designing Data-Intensive Applicationsby Martin Kleppmann | 37 | 1 | 97% | 12 | — | Approved |
| A Philosophy of Software Designby John Ousterhout | 28 | 1 | 97% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Code Completeby Steve McConnell | 14 | 0 | 100% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Agentic Engineering Patternsby Simon WillisonThis page | 5 | 2 | 71% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
7 of the 8 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Without this, I believe the book's content will be less relevant in 3 months”
“simon's agentic series is a good place to start”
“These patterns are all out of date by at least a year”
“I think your site will become an invaluable source for software engineers who want to responsibly apply AI in their development flow.”
“even though I love Simon's contributions”
“This chapter describes a technique for making code reviews less mentally burdensome”
“the ChatGPT generated test suite is not robust”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.