When to use an AI Coding Agent

A few weeks ago, I set up an automation in Codex to send me a weekly report on how efficiently I use AI for APEX development. The report is consistently telling me that I am using AI too much for small investigations and bug fixes, and that I should be using it more for new development and major refactors.

On this I have to disagree.

Even a small APEX bug involves the following:

1. Read and understand the ticket

2. Reproduce the issue

3. Isolate the code causing the issue

4. Plan a fix

5. Implement the fix

6. Regression test

7. Create a code pack

8. Deploy the fix to DEV, TEST, and PROD

9. Keep the user informed of progress

That can easily be forty-five minutes to an hour of work.

I can get Codex to do most of steps 1-6 for me and then review the diff and test results to confirm that Codex made good choices. This reduces steps 1-6 to about five to ten minutes. More importantly, Codex is going to do a better job than me of reviewing the entire codebase and finding dependencies I might miss when investigating a small ticket.

Small fixes are a big part of real APEX development, and saving time on them adds up. My experience still matters: I need to guide the agent, question its choices, and judge the result. With that oversight, even a small ticket can be a good use of an AI coding agent.