# Day 3: The AI Agents Landscape

> You'll tour the ecosystem of AI coding assistants and agent runners. Knowing the landscape helps you choose tools with criteria, not hype.

- **Source:** https://ainativesoftware.engineering/roadmap/day-3
- **Site:** AI-Native Software Engineering — https://ainativesoftware.engineering/book

- **Day:** 3 of 7
- **Topics:** 6
- **Reading time:** 14 minutes

You'll tour the ecosystem of AI coding assistants and agent runners. Knowing the landscape helps you choose tools with criteria, not hype.

## The 6 topics

- 01 · [What AI Coding Agents Are Out There](https://ainativesoftware.engineering/roadmap/day-3/what-ai-coding-agents-are-out-there.md) — A practical map of the AI coding tools available today, from IDE extensions to cloud-based agents, and the criteria that actually matter when choosing one. _(2 min)_
- 02 · [Getting Started With an AI Coding Assistant](https://ainativesoftware.engineering/roadmap/day-3/getting-started-with-an-ai-coding-assistant.md) — A practical introduction to using an AI coding assistant day to day, using GitHub Copilot in VS Code as the reference example. _(2 min)_
- 03 · [From Chat to Plans: A First Step Into Spec-Driven Development](https://ainativesoftware.engineering/roadmap/day-3/from-chat-to-plans-a-first-step-into-spec-driven-development.md) — How plan mode works, why it produces better results than jumping straight to code, and how to use it as your first structured step toward Spec-Driven Development. _(4 min)_
- 04 · [Best Practices for Coding With Agents](https://ainativesoftware.engineering/roadmap/day-3/best-practices-for-coding-with-agents.md) — The patterns that make the difference between a frustrating agent session and one that actually ships something useful. _(2 min)_
- 05 · [Cloud Agents: Delegating Work in the Background](https://ainativesoftware.engineering/roadmap/day-3/cloud-agents-delegating-work-in-the-background.md) — How cloud-based coding agents work, when they make sense, and how to use them to clear your backlog without losing control of your codebase. _(2 min)_
- 06 · [Automated Code Review With AI](https://ainativesoftware.engineering/roadmap/day-3/automated-code-review-with-ai.md) — How AI-powered code review tools work, what they catch, and how to integrate them into your PR workflow without replacing human judgment. _(2 min)_

**Every curated resource in day 3**

- [Coding Agents Comparison: Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, and more](https://artificialanalysis.ai/insights/coding-agents-comparison)
- [Quickstart for GitHub Copilot – GitHub Docs](https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/get-started/quickstart)
- [Cursor vs. Copilot: What Tool Has the Best Planning Mode? – Nearform](https://nearform.com/digital-community/cursor-vs-copilot-what-tool-has-the-best-planning-mode/)
- [Best Practices for Coding With Agents – Cursor](https://cursor.com/blog/agent-best-practices)
- [GitHub Copilot Coding Agents – GitHub](https://github.com/features/copilot/agents)
- [Using GitHub Copilot Code Review – GitHub Docs](https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/how-tos/use-copilot-agents/request-a-code-review/use-code-review)

- **Previous day:** [Day 2: The Basics](https://ainativesoftware.engineering/roadmap/day-2.md)
- **Next day:** [Day 4: Context Engineering and MCP](https://ainativesoftware.engineering/roadmap/day-4.md)
- **All days:** [The 7-day roadmap](https://ainativesoftware.engineering/roadmap.md)

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_AI-Native Software Engineering by Alfonso Graziano (O'Reilly Media, Early Release; print edition February 2027). Every page of ainativesoftware.engineering is also served as Markdown: append `.md` to any URL. Index: https://ainativesoftware.engineering/llms.txt — whole site in one file: https://ainativesoftware.engineering/llms-full.txt._