MIT Missing Semester Now Teaches Agentic Coding: TDD-First Agent Loops, AGENTS.md Context Files, and Skills Progressive Loading as CS Curriculum

MIT CSAIL·high signal

MIT's Missing Semester course (IAP 2026) added an agentic coding lecture covering production-grade patterns: write tests first then let the agent implement against them, use AGENTS.md files for session-persistent context (type-checking requirements, test commands, doc links), deploy Skills for on-demand context loading to avoid token bloat, and dispatch subagents for specialized tasks to keep the main agent's context focused. Course emphasizes 'coding models are particularly effective when you can get them in a feedback loop' and warns against debugging spirals.