AWS re:Invent 2025 - Designing Agent-Native Dev Teams: Coding Agents in Real Workflows (DVT226)

Designing Agent-Native Dev Teams: Coding Agents in Real Workflows

Overview of Agent-Native Development

• Rapid evolution of AI-powered development tools and "agentic workflows" in the past 2 years
• Shift from basic autocomplete to AI assistants that can write code, follow instructions, and automate tasks
• Emergence of "agentic flows" where AI agents work alongside developers, making dozens of file changes, running compilers, and auto-fixing issues

Introducing Curo: An AI-Native IDE and CLI

• Curo is a new product built from the ground up for AI-powered development
• Key problems it aims to solve:
  • Lack of structure and workflow around "vibe coding" with AI assistants
  • Limited control and visibility over AI models and their actions
  • Challenges of maintaining code quality, documentation, and sync across projects

Spec-Driven Development with Curo

• Curo introduces a "spec-driven" concept for planning and designing with AI agents
• During the planning phase, developers can work with agents to define requirements, design solutions, and generate task lists
• Agents can break down tasks, understand dependencies, and provide a structured workflow

Hooks and Context Management in Curo

• Curo IDE allows defining "hooks" that listen for file changes and automatically execute updates (e.g. localization, API docs)
• "Steering files" provide a way to capture project context (tech stack, architecture, etc.) that agents can leverage

Curo in the Terminal and Personal Workflows

• Curo CLI allows lightweight, multi-tasking interactions with AI agents
• Agents can be customized for specific workflows (e.g. code review, evaluation)
• Agents can be integrated into personal productivity tools and workflows

The Curo Autonomous Agent

• Curo has introduced a new "Autonomous Agent" that can work independently alongside developers
• Key capabilities:
  • Operates in a sandbox environment mirroring the developer's setup
  • Can make changes across multiple repositories and codebases
  • Maintains persistent context and learns user preferences over time

Integrating Agents into Development Workflows

• Curo Autonomous Agent can be connected to development tools like GitHub to automatically create PRs and handle tasks
• Agents can leverage context, ontologies, and knowledge graphs to understand the codebase and make informed decisions
• Agents use a combination of AI models, policies, and sub-agents to execute tasks autonomously

Business Impact and Customer Examples

• Customers like Infor2 have seen a shift where 40% of time is spent on planning/testing vs. 20% on coding
• Agents can automate tedious tasks like upgrading frameworks, generating documentation, and fixing vulnerabilities
• Empowers developers to focus on core engineering work rather than maintenance and operational tasks

Challenges and Future Directions

• Managing authorization, security, and deployment of autonomous agents at scale
• Improving the quality and reliability of AI models and their decision-making
• Enhancing the collaboration and communication between human developers and AI agents

Key Takeaways

• Curo is pioneering an "AI-native" approach to development tools and workflows
• Spec-driven planning, context management, and autonomous agents aim to bring more structure and automation to AI-powered development
• Autonomous agents can handle a wide range of tasks, from large-scale refactoring to documentation and security fixes
• Integrating agents into existing development tools and workflows is a key focus to drive adoption and business impact
• Challenges remain around reliability, security, and scaling agent-based development practices

Technical Details

• Curo utilizes a combination of large language models, custom agents, and policy-based systems
• Agents operate in sandboxed environments mirroring the developer's setup
• Agents leverage context, ontologies, and knowledge graphs to understand codebases and make informed decisions
• Curo supports integrations with tools like GitHub, Jira, and Confluence

Business Impact and Use Cases

• Curo has helped customers like Infor2 shift their development workflow, spending more time on planning and testing vs. coding
• Agents can automate tedious tasks like framework upgrades, documentation generation, and vulnerability fixes
• Empowers developers to focus on core engineering work rather than maintenance and operational tasks
• Enables faster experimentation, iteration, and delivery of new features and functionality

Examples

• Curo Autonomous Agent was able to plan and execute a migration from Angular 16 to Angular 20, a task that would have taken months for a dev team
• Agents can be used to generate architecture documentation, mermaid diagrams, and other context-rich artifacts to support sales and support teams
• Agents can be integrated with tools like Datadog to automatically create GitHub issues and PRs for identified vulnerabilities or technical debt