Technology Radar
Anthropic's Claude Code is an agentic AI coding tool for planning and executing complex multi-step workflows. We’re moving Claude Code to Adopt because teams inside and outside Thoughtworks now use it day-to-day in production software delivery, where it's widely treated as a benchmark for capability and usability. The CLI agent landscape has expanded quickly with tools such as OpenAI's Codex CLI, Google's Gemini CLI, OpenCode and pi, but Claude Code remains the preferred option for many teams. Its use now extends beyond code authoring into broader workflow execution, including specifications, stories, configuration, infrastructure, documentation and markdown-defined business processes. Claude Code continues to introduce features that other tools follow, such as skills, subagents, remote control and agentic team workflows.
Teams adopting Claude Code should pair it with disciplined operating practices. Agentic coding shifts developer effort from manual implementation toward specifying intent, constraints and review boundaries. This can accelerate delivery, but it also increases the risk of complacency with AI-generated code, which can make systems harder to maintain and evolve for both people and agents. We're seeing growing attention to harness engineering as a way to implement context engineering (topic-aware, scope-driven context selection) and curated shared instructions to make agentic workflows more reliable.
Anthropic's Claude Code is an agentic AI coding tool that provides a natural language interface and agentic execution model for planning and implementing complex, multi-step workflows. Released less than a year ago, it has already been widely adopted by developers inside and outside Thoughtworks, leading us to place it in Trial. Console-based coding agents such as OpenAI's Codex CLI, Google's Gemini CLI and the open-source OpenCode have been released, while IDE-based assistants like Cursor, Windsurf and GitHub Copilot now include agent modes. Even so, Claude Code remains a favorite. We see teams using it not only to write and modify code but also as a general-purpose AI agent for managing specifications, stories, configuration, infrastructure and documentation.
Agentic coding shifts the developer's focus from writing code to specifying intent and delegating implementation. While this can accelerate development cycles, it can also lead to complacency with AI-generated code, which in turn may result in code that is harder to maintain and evolve — for both humans and AI agents. It’s therefore essential for teams to rigorously manage how Claude Code works, using techniques such as context engineering, curated shared instructions and potentially teams of coding agents.
