https://preconfiguration.com/tags/problem/ Recent content in Problem on preconfiguration.com Hugo en-us Tue, 29 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://preconfiguration.com/the-problem-preconfiguration-solves-coding-agents-start-every-task-on-a-machine-nobody-set-up/ Tue, 29 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://preconfiguration.com/the-problem-preconfiguration-solves-coding-agents-start-every-task-on-a-machine-nobody-set-up/ <p>AI coding agents start each task on a blank machine. When that machine isn&rsquo;t set up, they guess, fail or hand back untested code, and every vendor wants the setup written in its own file.</p> <h2 id="agents-are-poor-at-doing-it-alone">Agents Are Poor at Doing It Alone</h2> <p>If agents could reliably set up a repository by themselves, the problem would solve itself. The benchmarks say they can&rsquo;t, yet:</p> <p><img src="https://preconfiguration.com/images/the-problem.png" alt="How often the best approach in each benchmark set up a repository on its own: 6.69% of 329 Python repositories and 29.47% of 665 JVM repositories in EnvBench, from JetBrains Research (2025), and a basic CPU run in 17 of the 29 research repositories that have one (58.6%) in ResearchEnvBench (2026)."></p>