Professional Software Developers Don’t Vibe, They Control:
AI Agent Use for Coding in 2025
https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.14012
"... Through field observations (N=13) and qualitative surveys (N=99), we find that while experienced developers value agents as a productivity boost, they retain their agency in software design and implementation out of insistence on fundamental software quality attributes, employing strategies for controlling agent behavior leveraging their expertise. In addition, experienced developers feel overall positive about incorporating agents into software development given their confidence in complementing the agents' limitations. Our results shed light on the value of software development best practices in effective use of agents, suggest the kinds of tasks for which agents may be suitable, and point towards future opportunities for better agentic interfaces and agentic use guidelines."
"... They generally enjoy using agents, finding them suitable for accelerating straightforward, repetitive, and scaffolding tasks, including a large variety of software engineering tasks like writing tests, documentation, refactoring, and simple debugging; and yet opinions are mixed about writing plans with agents, and they do not use agents for core business logic or complex tasks."
