ACI-017: The Delegation Model

Thesis

Delegation is the productive mental model for agentic coding. Pair programming is the wrong metaphor. Pair programming implies shared context and turn-taking. Delegation implies task definition, constraint setting, and outcome verification. Agents need delegation because they do not persist context between sessions and cannot share your understanding of why a task matters.

Story

The most common metaphor for AI-assisted coding is "pair programming." GitHub branded it this way. Blog posts describe "pairing with AI." The metaphor feels natural: two entities, one codebase, taking turns.