# How AI agents could shift software work from code changes to specifications and module rebuilds

DevFeed: [How AI agents could shift software work from code changes to specifications and module rebuilds](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/agents-are-the-new-compilers-specs-are-the-new-code-25207.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://kau.sh/blog/agent-compilers/>)

Author: Kaushik Gopal

Published: 2026-05-04T16:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Kaushik Gopal's Site](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/kaushik-gopal-s-site.md>)

Topics: [Artificial Intelligence](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ai.md>), [Software Engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/software-engineering.md>), [Agent Skills](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/agent-skills.md>), [Software](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/software.md>), [Refactoring](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/refactoring.md>), [modules](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/modules.md>), [patches](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/patches.md>)

Tags: [agents](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agents.md>), [ai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai.md>), [code](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/code.md>), [module](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/module.md>), [patches](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/patches.md>), [refactoring](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/refactoring.md>), [software-engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/software-engineering.md>)

## AI overview

This opinion article argues that AI agents may act like compilers, turning detailed specifications into software and reducing the need to write implementation code directly. Drawing on examples where the author changed implementations while preserving behavior, it suggests that agents could make rebuilding entire modules more practical than incremental patching and refactoring.

## Source excerpt

Linus Torvalds recently said1 AI will be to code what compilers were to assembly -- freeing us from writing it by hand. Around the same time, I talked with Jesse Vincent (creator of one of the most popular agent skills out there -- superpowers). Something he said stuck with me: Specs are going to be the new code. I realize those two ideas snap together a little too neatly. Agents are compilers2 and specs will become code. Software engineering is moving up another level of abstraction and we've seen this play out before. Specs as source ## I saw this first-hand with my tiny USB-C cable checker -- usbi. It started as a shell command over macOS's system_profiler, then became Go when I wanted a proper binary, then Rust because I wanted to practice Rust, and later a .kts version. The code kept changing. The thing I cared about did not: parse the USB tree, identify the attached devices, report the speed, and make bad cables obvious. Podsync, my voice track sync program, followed the same pattern. It started in Python because the audio libraries were there. Then I moved it to Rust because I didn't want to ship a Python runtime or care which Python version happened to be on a machine. Again, the implementation changed. The behavior stayed boringly stable: take a master track and local tracks, find the offset, pad or trim each file, and drop aligned audio into the DAW. Compilers freed us from writing assembly. Agents may free us from writing code because it becomes an artifact the spec produces. The somewhat recent push around detailed exec plans could be an early signal of the looming shift at bigger scale. Rebuilds instead of patches ## Push that thought further. We might get comfortable rebuilding whole modules instead of patching and refactoring them. We preserved the old shape of a system because throwing it away cost too much. Even when you know the module is wrong, you sand it down: extract an interface, migrate one caller at a time, add tests around behavior nobody full