I code with AI agents while going for a walk

Today I talk about agentic programming, recording while out for a walk.

Too many tools, a new one every day

Lately I’ve tried a ton of tools for coding with AI agents. I was there when Cursor was born, one of the first: they took VS Code and rebranded it. Then Gemini from the command line, Antigravity, Claude Code, OpenCode…

There are too many, you can’t keep up: a new one comes out every day. It feels like JavaScript when Node arrived and there was a new framework every day.

And yet, right now you can’t just stop and say “I’m happy with that one”. You have to keep trying, day after day. And it’s exhausting!

Orca, an agent orchestrator

Now I’m trying Orca. You can install it on any machine, from Windows to Linux to Mac, and on your phone too.

It gives you an environment similar to VS Code, but it isn’t meant for writing code by hand. It’s meant for launching and orchestrating agents: you give it the licenses you already have (Claude, OpenAI, Chinese models like Kimi) and it handles projects, sub-agents and notifications, all in one place.

Launch the tasks and go for a walk

The cool part is that you can install it on several machines, online ones too, and connect them easily to your phone.

You launch two or three tasks that might take half an hour, go for a walk, like I’m doing, and you get a notification when it’s done. Or it asks what you think about a choice: you glance at your phone as if it were a Slack message, answer “yes, fine” or “no, change it like this”, and it keeps working.

How we code now

For me, this is how we code now: flexible and asynchronous. These agents don’t answer right away, so the old flow is gone anyway.

I sound like a grandpa, but until a year ago you sat at your editor, wrote code, ran the tests, ran the app and checked that everything added up. Now you think, make a plan, break it into pieces and go. After a few minutes some clarifications come up, then it runs for half an hour through tests and review cycles.

I still have to learn to use it well, but this is the direction.

Running is exhausting

Keeping up has always been part of the job. When I worked with Ruby on Rails you had to follow new Rails and Ruby versions, change constructs, upgrade. We’re used to it.

Except now the speed of updates, abstraction and power has grown a hundredfold. I’m running, but I realize it’s really tiring. And those who didn’t do this with passion before will, in my opinion, be out of the game within a few months: if before we had to walk at a brisk pace, now we have to run.

Ask your nerd friend

These agents aren’t just for programming, though. They’re much more.

If you haven’t tried them yet, go to your nerd friend, who’s surely using them, and ask them to show you what they do. With some free time, a clear head and someone to guide you, you’ll find a way to use them for a problem of your own. And at that point you’ll ask yourself: what is going on? What is this tool?

Then tell me about your eureka moment: “I can sell this thing”, “I can organize my home cameras”… Write it in the comments on the video (it’s in Italian).