Martinfowler iconMartinfowlerAug 11, 2026

TDD inside the agent loop - theater or actual value?

My colleagues at Thoughtworks tend to be big fans of Test-Driven Development, and many people in the industry advocate telling LLM agents to use TDD when building software. Birgitta Böckeler was curious if this really makes a difference, so conducted a few experiments.

TDD inside the agent loop - theater or actual value?

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My colleagues at Thoughtworks tend to be big fans of Test-Driven Development, and many people in the industry advocate telling LLM agents to use TDD when building software.

Birgitta Böckeler was curious if this really makes a difference, so conducted a few experiments.

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My colleagues at Thoughtworks tend to be big fans of Test-Driven Development, and many people in the industry advocate telling LLM agents to use TDD when building software. Birgitta Böckeler was curious if this really makes a difference, so conducted a few experiments.

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