One of the best things about Netlify Agent Runners is how quickly you can go from an idea in your head to a real, deployed site or application.
Describe what you want to build, and an agent can work inside a full production environment, build the application, and deploy the result. There’s no local environment to configure and no separate deployment step between the prompt and a working application.
Amazing! But… sometimes the best response to a prompt isn’t to immediately start building. Sometimes it’s a handful of questions to sharpen the idea. Today, we’re adding clarifying questions to Agent Runners, giving agents a simple, interactive way to gather a few important details before they start building.
Getting the details right (before we build)
Let’s start out with a deliberately broad prompt:
Build a tracker dashboard.
Love the enthusiasm, but we’re missing a bit of context here. What do we want to track? Habits? Customer feedback? Something else entirely?
Previously, the agent had to guess at those decisions for you. Now, whenever a little more information would materially improve the result, the agent can just ask, and you’ll get an intuitive new UI to quickly provide the answers.
The questions are intentionally lightweight,. and you’re never locked into them. Answer the ones you have opinions about and skip the rest, skip a single question or all of them, and the agent decides for itself. You can always add context in your own words alongside your answers.
In our testing, even a few quick answers can make the first build substantially sharper, and can save time and credits.
Once you answer, Agent Runners gets to work as usual: writing the code, working with Netlify’s platform primitives, and taking the application all the way to a deployed preview. With a clearer picture of what you want, the agent can get closer on the first try, saving you time, iterations, and credits.
Keep building from there
The first deploy doesn’t have to be the final one. Maybe you want to change the visual direction, swap the placeholders out for real examples, or add another feature.
Netlify provides you with a full deploy preview where you can review what it built, then immediately continue the conversation:
Replace the example projects with these three projects…
Or:
Make the typography more editorial and reduce the amount of color.
Or simply:
I don’t like where this is headed. Let’s try a different direction.
Every iteration still produces a dedicated Deploy Preview. That gives you a durable history of what the agent built along the way, so you can review an earlier direction or return to it if the next experiment doesn’t work out.
A few more nice improvements
A faster experience
As you work, you’ll notice we’ve also made consecutive Agent Runs faster. Behind the scenes, we’re keeping the infrastructure used for your run warm and ready for subsequent requests, reducing the time it takes to move through these iterations.
More models to experiment with
We’ve also recently expanded the models available through Agent Runners, including a growing collection of new open models. You can experiment with different models and see how they approach the same problem, while the Agent Runner experience around them remains consistent.
Regardless of the model you choose, it can ask clarifying questions when useful, work against the same Netlify context, and ultimately deliver its work as a deployed application.
Build privately until launch day
With private projects collaboration can happen securely until you’re ready for the rest of the world to see your work. New teams now keep their deploys private by default, and existing teams can enable the setting as well. (Netlify Pro supports unlimited team members, making it easy to bring the right people into the process as you build.)
And again, all of it happens against the same production environment your application will ultimately run on.
New ask mode
There are times you want an agent to do some investigation and return a response without making any changes to your project. Perhaps you have a question like: “What are some good options to make the homepage load faster?”
Ask mode in Agent Runners is a fast way to explore a codebase, query databases, investigate issues, and better understand your project before making any changes. It’s guaranteed to be read-only and won’t spend the time or credits to create a new deploy.
Agent Runners: The fastest path from an idea to a deployed application
Tryout the new, smarter, faster Agent Runners. Projects can be private by default, you can experiment with many more models, and now agents can stop for a moment and ask for the information they need before they build.
Together, these improvements change what it feels like to build with an agent. Be sure to share with us what you build, and what you’d like your agents to be able to do next.
More great Agent Runner resources
- Get started with Agent Runners
- Deploy Previews — Learn how Netlify creates shareable, isolated previews for every iteration.
- Private Deploys by Default — Keep new projects and works in progress private until you’re ready to share them.
- Build with open models in production — Explore the growing range of models available across Netlify.
- Netlify CLI — Work with Netlify projects and Agent Runners from your local development environment.
