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37signals, the company behind Ruby on Rails, is moving to have AI agents generate nearly all its code, according to a September 24 newsletter account of David Heinemeier Hansson’s Rails World keynote. The announcement concerns the company’s own professional work; its scale, results and effects on engineering jobs remain unclear.
At Rails World, David Heinemeier Hansson said 37signals, the company behind Ruby on Rails, is moving toward having agents generate nearly all its code. The announcement renews debate about whether professional software developers will continue to write code by hand, while the account frames the change as applying to 37signals at least; it gives no measured results or timetable.
The development is a change in how 37signals intends to produce software: AI agents are expected to generate nearly all the company’s code. Hansson made the declaration in his Rails World keynote, according to a September 24 account in The Pragmatic Engineer’s newsletter series, The Pulse. The account identifies him as the creator of Ruby on Rails and describes 37signals as the framework’s creator.
The stated scope matters. The keynote was presented as a claim about professional work at 37signals, not proof that software developers everywhere have stopped writing code. The newsletter’s framing asks whether the shift is unstoppable, but that is a question, not an established finding. It does not report adoption figures across other firms or provide evidence that the same approach works for all kinds of software projects.
The account supplies no breakdown of which tasks agents will handle, how much code they already generate, or how the company checks their output. It also gives no comparison of development speed, reliability, cost or maintenance against code written by employees. Those details are needed to judge what “nearly all” means in practice and whether the change has altered the work or outcomes of 37signals’ engineering team.
Software work · The reported shift
How the RoR Creator Reignited Debate Over Coding by Hand’s Future
At Rails World, David Heinemeier Hansson said 37signals is moving toward having AI agents generate nearly all its code. The announcement is a company’s stated direction—not a measure of results across the software industry.
01 / What was said
A company direction, not an industry verdict
The September 24, 2026 account in The Pragmatic Engineer’s newsletter series, The Pulse, reports a shift in how 37signals intends to produce software. Its scope is professional work at that company.
Agents generate nearly all code
Hansson said 37signals is moving toward having agents generate nearly all its code. The account supplies no timetable or current share.
37signals’ professional work
The reported direction concerns the company behind Ruby on Rails. It does not establish that developers everywhere have stopped writing code.
What changes in practice?
The account does not describe agent tasks, employee responsibilities, output checks, or measurable effects on engineering work.
02 / How to read the evidence
Direction is clear; outcomes are not
The available account signals an intended change, while leaving the practical scale and impact unanswered.
What the account establishes
- Hansson made the announcement in his Rails World keynote.
- 37signals intends to rely on agents to generate nearly all its code.
- The reported claim is about the company’s own professional work.
What remains unreported
- Current agent-generated share, task breakdown, and completion date.
- How code is reviewed, tested, and evaluated before use.
- Changes to speed, reliability, cost, maintenance, staffing, or quality.
03 / The scale of the claim
One signal. No industry measurement.
This evidence snapshot separates the reported company direction from outcomes and wider adoption that the account does not measure.
The bars distinguish evidence status; they do not represent adoption percentages. The account provides no figures for any of these measures.
04 / What to watch next
From announcement to evidence
These details would help readers assess whether agent-generated code changes engineering work or software outcomes at 37signals.
Share of code
How much code agents generate, and how that share changes over time.
Tasks and roles
Which work agents handle and what employees continue to do.
Review and quality
How generated code is checked, tested, and maintained.
Delivery outcomes
Evidence on speed, reliability, cost, and longer-term maintenance.
05 / Questions readers are asking
What this announcement can—and cannot—tell us
Will developers stop coding by hand?
The account does not establish an industry-wide shift. Its reported claim concerns 37signals, and wider effects remain unclear.
Has 37signals shared results?
No measurements of code share, speed, quality, staffing, or review practices appear in the account.
Will code review disappear?
The newsletter raises review as part of the debate, but does not report that 37signals has changed or ended its review process.
Are Amazon and Meta’s hiring issues connected?
The newsletter mentions engineering hiring at both companies, but the supplied excerpt gives no details and makes no causal link to 37signals.
Source note The Pragmatic Engineer, The Pulse, September 24, 2026 account of David Heinemeier Hansson’s Rails World keynote. The account frames the announcement; it does not provide measured results or industry-wide adoption data.
What Agent-Written Code Could Change
The announcement matters because it puts a recognizable software company’s coding practice at the center of a larger workplace question: what professional engineers will do if agents produce most of the code. If the approach succeeds at 37signals, it could offer a visible example for other teams considering a similar division of work. The supplied account, however, does not establish that other companies are following its lead.
It also makes the boundary between generating software and engineering it more relevant. Even if agents write code, teams still need to decide what a product should do and determine whether the result is suitable for use. The keynote account does not describe how 37signals handles those responsibilities, so it cannot show whether human review, testing or other practices have changed. Nor does it establish that code review will disappear; the newsletter mentions that possibility as part of the debate.
For readers following technology jobs, the distinction between a company’s experiment and a broad labor-market trend is especially important. The same newsletter raises Amazon and Meta’s engineering hiring difficulties, but the supplied excerpt gives no details about those difficulties and does not connect them causally to 37signals’ decision. The two topics should not be treated as evidence of one shared trend.
The Rails World Announcement
Rails World is the setting for the reported remarks. The account says that Hansson declared an end to writing code by hand for professional work at 37signals, at least. That qualification limits the claim: it presents the company’s direction as the news, while the broader question of what happens across the profession remains open.
The Pulse is described as a series covering events, insights and trends in Big Tech and startups. Its September 24, 2026 issue grouped the 37signals announcement with questions about hand-written coding, engineering hiring at Amazon and Meta, and the future of code reviews. The excerpt does not include further reporting or supporting details on those other topics. They provide the newsletter’s frame for the debate, not additional confirmed findings about the 37signals announcement.
“The end for writing code by hand for professional work — at 37signals at least.”
— David Heinemeier Hansson, as characterized in The Pragmatic Engineer’s account of his Rails World keynote
How Far the Shift Has Reached
The available account does not say when the change will be complete, how the company defines “nearly all,” or what proportion of its code agents currently generate. It also does not identify the agents, explain which work remains with employees, or report how generated code is evaluated. Without those details, the announcement signals a direction but does not measure its results.
It remains unclear whether the approach has changed staffing, review practices, delivery speed or software quality at 37signals. The newsletter raises possible changes to code reviews and broader engineering employment, but the excerpt does not confirm either outcome. It also provides no evidence that Amazon or Meta’s reported hiring challenges are linked to agent-written code.
The broader claim that hand-written coding is ending across professional software work remains unproven by this account. One company’s stated direction cannot establish what is happening across the industry, and no comparison with other teams or longer-term results is included.
Evidence to Watch at 37signals
The next useful information would clarify how 37signals is putting the change into practice: the share of code agents generate, the kinds of work they handle, and the checks employees apply before code is used. Updates on delivery, reliability and maintenance could help show whether the approach is producing measurable changes. None of those measures appears in the account of the keynote.
Further reporting could also establish whether 37signals has changed its engineering roles or review process, and whether other companies adopt similar practices. Until those details are available, the confirmed development is the company’s stated move toward agent-generated code. Whether it signals a wider change in professional software work remains unresolved.
Source: rss
Key Questions
What did David Heinemeier Hansson announce?
At Rails World, he said 37signals is moving toward having agents generate nearly all its code. The account describes the claim as applying to the company’s professional work.
Does this mean professional developers will stop writing code by hand?
No such industry-wide conclusion is established. The reported announcement concerns 37signals; the wider effect remains unclear.
Has 37signals reported results from using agents?
The account gives no figures for agent-generated code, development speed, quality, staffing or review practices. It reports the company’s direction, not measured outcomes.
Are Amazon and Meta’s hiring challenges connected to the announcement?
The newsletter mentions engineering hiring at both companies, but the excerpt gives no details and does not link those challenges to 37signals’ use of agents.
Source: rss
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