Using coding agents on a migration: Three practices that mattered

During Temporal Cloud’s migration of usage and billing data storage to ClickHouse, coding agents proved most valuable for removing temporary scaffolding and outdated configuration rather than creating new code, largely because the team had documented cleanup needs and local rules in advance. Temporary migration code included distinctive comments explaining its purpose and required removal, allowing agents to locate and delete related packages, mocks, manifests, and environment settings efficiently. The team also placed durable, package-specific instructions alongside relevant code and linked them to regression tests, such as a rule requiring numeric values to be widened before aggregation to prevent overflow. However, written agent instructions can become obsolete when systems change, and one surviving file still refers to deleted components and invalid verification steps. The authors caution that incomplete prompt records and a lack of comparison data prevent claims that agents made the overall migration faster, while emphasizing that domain-specific knowledge remains essential.

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