Version 1.0 · 29 May 2026

Agentic Software Engineering

The discipline of structured, auditable human-agent workflows for building software. A discipline rather than a tool — the principles are the part that lasts.

Course profile

Modules19
Parts4
Course outcomes11
Coursework / project50 / 50

Engineering students who already have foundational knowledge of computer science and some experience with software engineering. Also usable as a textbook and as a reference for practitioners building agentic-engineering capability.

Abstract

This document is the comprehensive conceptual framework, curriculum, and teaching foundation for the course ASE-26, which teaches Agentic Software Engineering as the discipline of structured, auditable human-agent workflows for building software. ASE treats the human role as framing, specifying and judging while agents execute. Configuring the agentic development environment, engineering context, and verifying output are first-class engineering activities. The curriculum is organised in 19 modules across four parts. Part 1 establishes the discipline, the human role, mental models of agents, the anatomy of an agentic workflow, and the typology of agentic development environments. Part 2 covers project conception, web application architecture, interface design and documentation, and the architecture of intelligence in software. Part 3 develops the engineering practice: specifications and the co-evolution spiral, context engineering, safety and recovery, verification before trust, multi-agent decomposition and orchestration, review, and security and governance. Part 4 addresses entrepreneurship and the labour market in the age of AI coding.

agentic software engineeringagentic codingvibe codingLLM-based agentssoftware engineering educationcurriculumevolutionary spiralco-evolution of intent and buildauditabilitycontext engineeringverificationmulti-agent workflowsMRPADEAgentOps

The discipline in four ideas

Full model →
groups

Division of labour

The human frames, specifies, and judges. The agent executes. Equipping and verifying are the human’s job.

fact_check

Auditability

A workflow that cannot be inspected, replayed, or evaluated after the fact is craft, not engineering.

verified

Verification before trust

Every agent output is a hypothesis until it passes a defined gate. Nothing enters the project unchecked.

sync

The evolutionary spiral

Intent and build co-evolve through turns — fast and loose inside, pinned down at named commit points.

Four parts

19 modules

Read the document

8 concepts · 19 modules

Cite & reuse

Suggested citation

Gorsky, M. (2026). ASE-26: A conceptual framework, curriculum, and teaching foundation for agentic software engineering. Version 1.0. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20468021

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0). You are free to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, for any purpose including commercially, provided you give appropriate credit. Requests to translate, adapt, abridge, or otherwise produce derivative works should be addressed to the author.

Contact the authorarrow_forward

Mikael Alemu Gorsky

Mikael Alemu is an educator and researcher, and the author of two programs: Agentic Software Engineering, on building software with AI agents, and Building AI-Native Agentic Systems, on building software that thinks.

He teaches at the Holon Institute of Technology, near Tel Aviv, where Agentic Software Engineering runs as a credit-bearing course. He is an educator and researcher.

Nine published works, 76 citations. A 350-page textbook under contract with a major academic publisher.

Teaching and programs

Agentic Software Engineering — program, preprint and textbook

The discipline of structured, auditable human-agent workflows for building software. The human frames, specifies and judges. The agent executes. Nineteen modules in four parts, built on a running project called Tribunal, a web application in which agents argue opposing sides of a case and a judge agent decides. Taught for credit at the Holon Institute of Technology.

Agentic Software Engineering curriculum

Building AI-Native Agentic Systems — program, paper and book in writing

How to build systems that hold a language model as a working component, and treat that component as what it is: stochastic, slow and metered. Fourteen modules in four parts, about seventy hours. The running project is the Observatory, a news agency that watches sources, selects what matters and publishes on a cadence.

Research and analytics

Publications — journals and proceedings

Nine works, 76 citations. Research on artificial intelligence in education, with Ilya Levin and Alexei Semenov.

The AI Pravda — LinkedIn newsletter

Critical analysis of artificial intelligence and its effect on work and society. 5,500+ subscribers. The complete archive of 103 issues (2023–2026) is published in full at mgorsky.net/theaipravda.

Subscribe to The AI Pravda on LinkedIn

Pro bono

AI for seniors — free workshop

Helping older adults use everyday AI tools. Delivered to Russian-speaking communities in Israel.

For older adults, artificial intelligence is about preserving quality of life, maintaining autonomy, and sustaining the feeling of independence that defines dignified aging. For seniors who have emigrated, AI becomes a bridge: it can translate documents, explain official letters, help compose emails in the local language, and guide users through government websites. The workshop has been delivered to Russian-speaking communities in Israel, where participants — many of them in their 70s and 80s — discovered that AI could help them read Hebrew documents and communicate with Israeli institutions.

Startup competitions — unpaid time

Judging and mentoring early-stage ventures. Helping teams clarify their value proposition, assess technical feasibility, and prepare for the realities of scaling an AI product.

AC/VC LinkedIn group — community

A group for developers and students working with coding agents. The community shares practical insights, code examples, tool comparisons, and honest assessments of what works in production.

Join the AC/VC LinkedIn group

Recent

Important Links