AI coding agent glossary

The vocabulary around AI coding agents changes fast. These are clear, dated definitions of the terms that matter, and how they relate to each other.

• What is an agentic development environment (ADE)?An agentic development environment (ADE) is a workspace built around AI coding agents rather than a human editor. Warp coined the term in June 2025.
• What is the agentic development lifecycle (ADLC)?The agentic development lifecycle (ADLC) keeps the SDLC's phases but hands execution to AI coding agents, with humans setting intent and reviewing outcomes.
• Background agents vs cloud agents: what's the difference?Background agents and cloud agents are substantially the same idea: an AI coding agent that runs asynchronously in an isolated environment and returns a PR.
• What are multiplayer agents?Multiplayer agents are AI agents that multiple people work with in one shared live session. How the term differs from multi-agent systems, with 2026 examples.
• What is a coding harness?A coding harness is the software wrapped around a language model that turns it into a working coding agent: system prompt, tools, context, and loop. Definition, examples, and how it differs from the model.
• Harness of harnessesA harness of harnesses is a development environment that runs multiple AI coding harnesses (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode) side by side under one shared layer. Definition and criteria.
• What is agent orchestration?Agent orchestration is coordinating multiple AI coding agents across isolated environments: assigning work, isolating changes, tracking runs, reviewing output.
• Session reviewSession review is reviewing an AI coding agent's working session (the brief, corrections, dead ends, and behavior) rather than only the diff it produced. Definition and practice.