Coding agent
Also called: coding assistant
A coding agent — Claude Code, Cursor, and their kin — is an AI workplace that lives in a folder of files on your computer: it reads and writes those files, can run commands, keeps its state between sessions, and produces durable artifacts instead of text trapped in a conversation.
A coding agent — Claude Code, Cursor, and their kin — is an AI workplace that lives in a folder of files on your computer: it reads and writes those files, can run commands, keeps its state between sessions, and produces durable artifacts instead of text trapped in a conversation. The name is historical. The shape — files plus persistence plus real outputs — fits any sustained work that produces text or structured documents, which is most professional work.
Why it matters: The most expensive belief in professional AI is I’m not a developer. The technical floor is far lower than the identity suggests — willing to open a terminal, read a short error message, accept that files live in folders. Researchers run literature reviews in these; writers run books; consultants run client engagements, each project a folder the agent re-reads every session instead of being re-briefed. Nobody’s coding. Everybody’s keeping their context. The first weekend is awkward; the identity is the only real prerequisite it asks you to drop.