2026-06-28 21:57 UTCOriginal source1 min readUpdated: 2026-06-28 22:16 UTC

Quoting Jon Udell: “Don’t Do That” with Unreviewable Agent PRs

Simon Willison shares Jon Udell’s critique of the phrase “human in the loop,” which Udell argues cedes authority to machines. Instead, Udell proposes “agent in the loop,” where agents are invited into human-led processes, not the reverse.

SourceSimon Willison's Weblog

A quote from Jon Udell

Simon Willison’s Weblog

28th June 2026

Human Agent in the loop

I dislike the phrase “human in the loop” because it cedes authority to the machines. Let’s flip the narrative. It’s our loop, we work the same way we always have, now we recruit agents to join the team. An agent-assisted process need not be a black box that takes in prompts and emits features. [...]

Let’s do agentic software development like that. Not as a loop we’ve been excluded from, instead as one we invite agents into.

— Jon Udell, “Doctor, it hurts when agents create unreviewable PRs.” “Don’t do that.”