The Prompt is the Platform - Dominik Tornow, Resonate HQ
TL;DR
Specifications become the product: Instead of reusing general-purpose implementations, developers will reuse specifications and derive bespoke implementations tailored to their existing infrastructure.
Agents fail without intermediate steps: The gap between abstract specifications and concrete implementations was too large for agents to bridge directly; a concrete specification step was needed.
Deterministic simulation enables agent-driven design: By simulating target platforms with controlled randomness, agents can discover correct algorithms before writing production code.
"Forbidden fruit" accelerates debugging: Simulations expose information production systems hide, like whether a read was stale, helping agents understand why their algorithms failed.
Minimalism is a prerequisite, not a starting point: Resonate spent three years simplifying their protocol to two core objects before agents could successfully design implementations.
The Breakdown
Dominik Tornow predicts that by 2026, coding agents will quietly retire their first software platform because specifications, not implementations, will become the reusable product. He demonstrates how Resonate used deterministic simulation to let agents participate in system design by exposing "forbidden fruit" information that reveals why distributed algorithms fail.
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