The process began with an idea brainstormed on Slack, where the AI assistant, Cortana, was used to analyze business potential by referencing the context graph. This led to defining product requirements and even generating Figma mockups for A/B testing different button variants. Cortana then assisted in identifying the necessary code changes for both frontend and backend components. This entire ideation and design phase, which previously could take weeks, is now compressed into a significantly shorter timeframe.
The development handoff then moved to the Minion agent, Uber’s cloud coding agent solution, which leveraged the DevPods building block. Minion autonomously worked on creating draft PRs, performing tasks like code validation and visual checks before submitting to CI. This proactive validation in the “inner loop” aims to catch errors early, reducing load on the CI system. The presentation highlighted how the system shifts checks from the outer loop (CI) to the inner loop, incorporating visual validation and even self-healing CI capabilities.