[prateekk77]

"Your codebase must be bad" is backwards. Agents perform better on well-structured codebases with clear interfaces and good tests. They struggle on legacy spaghetti.

The mental model that works: treat them like junior engineers. Clear issue, bounded scope, review their PR. Output quality tracks directly with task scoping.

Where it genuinely falls apart: anything requiring context about why something was designed a certain way. Agents can read code, they can't read the Slack thread from 2023.