# The Levels of Agentic Coding

DevFeed: [The Levels of Agentic Coding](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/the-levels-of-agentic-coding-33485.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://timkellogg.me/blog/2026/01/20/agentic-coding-vsm>)

Published: 2026-01-20T00:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Tim Kellogg](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/tim-kellogg.md>)

Topics: [agentic-coding](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/agentic-coding.md>), [coding](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/coding.md>), [Artificial Intelligence](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ai.md>), [systems](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/systems.md>), [Formal methods](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/formal-methods.md>)

Tags: [agentic](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agentic.md>), [agentic-coding](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agentic-coding.md>), [ai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai.md>), [coding](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/coding.md>), [formal-methods](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/formal-methods.md>), [git](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/git.md>), [systems](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/systems.md>), [tests](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/tests.md>)

## AI overview

The article applies Stafford Beer's Viable System Model from cybernetics to evaluate levels of agentic coding. It describes progressively giving coding agents more control while adding coordination and governance mechanisms to keep teams and projects stable.

## Source excerpt

Are you good at agentic coding? How do you even evaluate that? How do you get better? Let's approach this though the Viable System Model (VSM) from cybernetics. Previously I showed how the VSM can be used to build agents.