The productivity impact of coding agents

This post presents findings from a study on the productivity impact of Cursor's coding agent. It highlights that companies merge 39% more PRs after the agent became default. The study also observed that experienced developers have a higher acceptance rate of agent-written code compared to junior developers, contrary to initial expectations. Theories suggest this is due to experienced developers' better evaluation skills, more effective agent usage (e.g., custom rules, context management), and work on more well-scoped tasks. The analysis of user requests shows that ~61% are for implementation, with experienced developers more likely to plan actions before coding.