The Rise of Agentic AI Coding Tools
Google has just launched Firebase Studio, an AI-powered development environment that lets you build entire apps from a prompt. It's part of a growing class of agentic AI coding platforms—systems that don’t just assist with code - they reason about, plan changes and even execute them.
Semi-autonomous code editors are here to stay. But are they good agents?
AI assistants that complete your code are now commonplace. But a new category is emerging: AI tools that don’t just assist—they act. These tools analyze your codebase, plan changes, and apply them—sometimes across dozens of files. In some cases, they even run tests and submit pull requests.
At The Good Agents Company, we evaluate these tools through the lens of governance, safety, and tangible value. A good agent is not just helpful—it is reliable, auditable, and aligned with your goals.
This article focuses on the growing class of agentic AI coding platforms. We review eight notable offerings:
- Sourcegraph Cody
- Windsurf (formerly Codeium)
- Cursor
- GitHub Copilot (Agent Mode)
- Claude Code (Anthropic)
- SWE-agent
- Replit Ghostwriter
- Firebase Studio (Google)
What Makes These Tools “Agentic”?
These tools do more than make suggestions. They can:
- Understand large code bases
- Plan multi-step changes
- Execute edits across files
- Explain or justify changes
- In some cases, run tests or code
They exhibit forms of autonomy and intent. But with great power comes a new set of risks—and challenges.
Are They Good Agents?
Let's apply the FAR-SIGHT framework to these tools:
✅ Financially Viable
A Good Agent delivers tangible financial value. It makes or saves money by improving efficiency, reducing costs, increasing revenue, or unlocking new opportunities.
Software development is proving to be one of the most financially fruitful use cases for agentic AI. JPMorgan Chase reports 10–20% efficiency gains across tens of thousands of developers using internal coding assistants. Replit’s CEO claims agents make developers "two to five times faster," especially those new to programming.
Agentic tools like Cody, Windsurf, Firebase Studio, and SWE-agent don’t just accelerate individual keystrokes—they reduce friction across entire development workflows, from ideation to deployment. When scoped and reviewed properly, they demonstrably reduce time-to-market, improve consistency, and free up senior engineers to focus on strategic work.
✅ Accurate
A Good Agent is engineered for accuracy. It uses trustworthy sources, double-checks itself, and avoids false or misleading outputs.
Accuracy in coding tools is a mix of good reasoning, context awareness, and validation.
- SWE-agent is exemplary here: it only proposes changes if they pass real test cases.
- Sourcegraph Cody cites file paths and line numbers when explaining code or planning edits.
- Claude Code provides detailed justifications, helping developers assess reasoning.
- Copilot’s “Agent Mode”, now in preview, is designed to trace its actions and may soon incorporate output validation.
The weakest performers here are tools that suggest changes without validating correctness or sourcing—posing risk if users apply changes without full review.
✅ Resilient
A Good Agent performs well under pressure. It recovers from errors, adapts to change, and fails safely.
Agentic tools are still learning resilience, but some are making strides.
- Cody, Windsurf, and Copilot Agent Mode support multi-step task planning. When errors occur, they can retry or offer alternatives.
- SWE-agent loops until it produces a passing test—an example of resilience by design.
- Cursor previews changes but depends on human review to catch issues.
Resilience in this space doesn’t mean perfection—it means the agent knows when it’s wrong and helps you recover quickly.
✅ Sustainable
A Good Agent isn’t just a prototype. It’s built to be maintained, monitored, extended, and upgraded.
Sustainable tools integrate into existing dev environments, support ongoing code evolution, and avoid vendor lock-in.
- Cody Enterprise is a standout: it integrates with code search, ticket systems, and internal docs, supporting long-term productivity at scale.
- Windsurf allows organizations to develop and reuse automated “flows”—repeatable, editable agent behaviors.
- Cursor tracks edit history and supports consistent agent behavior across projects.
- Firebase Studio and Replit are sustainable for greenfield projects, but may struggle with long-term maintainability in larger codebases or when working outside their ecosystems.
Sustainability is about more than scalability—it’s about preventing technical debt from the agent itself.
✅ Integrated
A Good Agent is a team player. It works with your data, systems, processes, and people.
Integration means the agent fits naturally into your software development lifecycle.
- Copilot, Windsurf, and Cody integrate with popular IDEs (VS Code, JetBrains).
- Cursor is a full IDE in itself, fully AI-native but compatible with standard extensions.
- Firebase Studio and Replit offer cloud-first environments with seamless preview, deploy, and collaboration tools.
- Claude Code and SWE-agent are CLI-based, making them useful in automation workflows but harder to embed in team-based coding environments.
The more an agent fits where your team already works, the faster it becomes productive.
✅ Governed
A Good Agent is subject to a robust governance framework—so you know who it learns from, what it can access, and how it behaves.
Many of these tools have taken first steps:
- Cody Enterprise allows self-hosting, RBAC, and model controls.
- Windsurf offers business-tier telemetry and privacy enforcement.
- Copilot for Business supports SSO, usage tracking, and has plans for Model Context Protocol alignment.
- Firebase Studio inherits some GCP controls but lacks fine-grained agent-level governance today.
- Claude Code, Replit, and SWE-agent currently lack built-in policy frameworks, though some transparency can be achieved externally.
Governance needs attention—especially as coding agents start touching more critical systems and more sensitive data.
✅ Human-Focused
A Good Agent doesn’t replace people. It helps them think better, move faster, and stay in control.
Each of these tools respects the developer’s role in the loop.
- Cursor, Cody, and Windsurf preview their changes for human review.
- Claude Code collaborates in natural language, making it feel like a conversational teammate.
- Replit and Firebase Studio lower the barrier to full-stack development, especially for less experienced engineers.
- Even SWE-agent, though autonomous, is typically used in supervised environments (e.g., CI pipelines or pull request automation).
A Good Agent serves its users—not the other way around.
✅ Transparent
A Good Agent shows its work. It tells you what it did, why it did it, and where its knowledge came from.
Transparency builds trust—and enables effective oversight.
- Cody leads with transparency: it cites source code, explains decisions, and logs actions.
- Cursor shows proposed diffs clearly and allows rollback.
- Claude Code explains in natural language but is less explicit about where its knowledge came from.
- Windsurf logs automated flows and steps.
- Copilot is improving here—with newer modes offering better insight into action history and command execution.
- SWE-agent runs in code, not chat—so logs are available, but not human-friendly by default.
- Firebase Studio and Replit are transparent at the UX level but lack visibility into the reasoning of their agents.
Transparency isn’t about seeing the code—it’s about understanding the thinking behind it.
Recommendations for Leaders
If you're an engineering manager, CIO, or Head of Innovation, here's what to keep in mind:
✅ Use these tools to reduce toil, not to eliminate review.
✅ Choose platforms that match your workflows and governance needs.
✅ Favor tools that preview actions, cite sources, and support human oversight.
⚠️ Avoid deploying fully autonomous agents without clear boundaries, testing, and logs.
Agentic coding tools are powerful. But power without safety is risk.
Final Word
Agentic development environments are evolving quickly. Today’s tools can:
- Automate boilerplate
- Plan and apply structural code changes
- Run basic validations and propose fixes
A Good Agent is one that helps your team ship faster, with less risk, and more confidence. If you're evaluating agentic coding tools, start small, stay in control, and audit often.