agreed - I like being able to choose and pick how I prefer to work, not locked into one interface, one workflow, one way of doing things. terminals might feel too "zoomed out" from the work sometimes.
I think the interface is less important than the quality of the feedback loop.
For fast iteration, chat-style interfaces seem natural. But when working on large codebases, I still prefer something closer to an IDE/workflow, because context switching becomes expensive very quickly.
The interesting part of agentic engineering is no longer just “talking to the AI” — it’s how well the system understands the project context, constraints, previous decisions, and team workflow over time.
I’m curious to see how others are balancing speed and control here.
I personally love the CLI. I feel like I can follow along in my own VSCode IDE while the CLI is doing the work.
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Honestly both. I still use VS Code constantly because reading code, jumping around files, scrolling diffs etc just feels faster there.
But I don't really like running the agent inside the editor itself. I usually keep it in a terminal beside VS Code and let it work there while I inspect the changes separately. Terminal-only feels too detached from the actual code, and editor-first makes me babysit every step. Keeping them in separate panes is the compromise that works for me.
"Terminal-only feels too detached from the actual code, and editor-first makes me babysit every step. Keeping them in separate panes is the compromise that works for me."
Less confortable with CLI... IDE mostly cuz it doesnt feel cramped and gives me a visual vantage point. Using CLI is a side kick that gets all the smaller tasks done without my monitoring.
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Depends on what you are doing, and how. If you need to add something small, ask for suggestion, check how a specific LLM behaves, so that you can gain some trust, so that you can teach it, having IDE would be really helpful.
A lot of us started with UI tools like Antigravity, Cursor.
Once things get advanced, the CLI works really good, it is faster, it does not lag. It has direct access to the console.
When I worked with Cursor and Antigravity, every time I wanted a analysis of the log, it saved the log in a file. Asked me for permission to save, asked for permission to read. And never deleted its left garbage of temporary log files. It polluted my repository, and created a risk for deletion of something important, while trying to clean the useless junk ;)
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IDE for me personally.
I still prefer seeing everything visually, especially when working on product design and mobile UI. But AI agents definitely make iteration much faster now.
i am more comfortable with CLI there’s something about staying inside the terminal that just feels faster and more focused. No switching tabs, no UI distractions.
Both. IDE for structured development/debugging and CLI for speed, automation, and agent workflows. The combination feels most practical when working with AI coding agents across real-world engineering and data projects.
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I feel the cli is much more interactive and can be used within vscode in any case. I prefer claude code but have also used codex in the same manner.
Tabstack by Mozilla
agreed - I like being able to choose and pick how I prefer to work, not locked into one interface, one workflow, one way of doing things. terminals might feel too "zoomed out" from the work sometimes.
Earth.fm
I think the interface is less important than the quality of the feedback loop.
For fast iteration, chat-style interfaces seem natural. But when working on large codebases, I still prefer something closer to an IDE/workflow, because context switching becomes expensive very quickly.
The interesting part of agentic engineering is no longer just “talking to the AI” — it’s how well the system understands the project context, constraints, previous decisions, and team workflow over time.
I’m curious to see how others are balancing speed and control here.
Tabstack by Mozilla
exactly - you should get to choose how you work.
I personally love the CLI. I feel like I can follow along in my own VSCode IDE while the CLI is doing the work.
Honestly both. I still use VS Code constantly because reading code, jumping around files, scrolling diffs etc just feels faster there.
But I don't really like running the agent inside the editor itself. I usually keep it in a terminal beside VS Code and let it work there while I inspect the changes separately. Terminal-only feels too detached from the actual code, and editor-first makes me babysit every step. Keeping them in separate panes is the compromise that works for me.
Tabstack by Mozilla
@whetlan it feels like a good balance - love it
Less confortable with CLI... IDE mostly cuz it doesnt feel cramped and gives me a visual vantage point. Using CLI is a side kick that gets all the smaller tasks done without my monitoring.
Depends on what you are doing, and how. If you need to add something small, ask for suggestion, check how a specific LLM behaves, so that you can gain some trust, so that you can teach it, having IDE would be really helpful.
A lot of us started with UI tools like Antigravity, Cursor.
Once things get advanced, the CLI works really good, it is faster, it does not lag. It has direct access to the console.
When I worked with Cursor and Antigravity, every time I wanted a analysis of the log, it saved the log in a file. Asked me for permission to save, asked for permission to read. And never deleted its left garbage of temporary log files. It polluted my repository, and created a risk for deletion of something important, while trying to clean the useless junk ;)
IDE for me personally.
I still prefer seeing everything visually, especially when working on product design and mobile UI. But AI agents definitely make iteration much faster now.
Tabstack by Mozilla
@charlened in this context, I assume working with a GUI also helps find inspiration, doesn't it?
CacheTray
i am more comfortable with CLI there’s something about staying inside the terminal that just feels faster and more focused. No switching tabs, no UI distractions.
Tabstack by Mozilla
@wenayy focus mode on!
Both. IDE for structured development/debugging and CLI for speed, automation, and agent workflows. The combination feels most practical when working with AI coding agents across real-world engineering and data projects.
Tabstack by Mozilla
spot on - feels like the default setup for most of us
I used to be an editor person, but I’ve found myself using the CLI more as my projects get bigger.