# Guillermo Rauch argues production traces should guide coding agents

> Original title: I unironically agree with @bcherny’s take that “coding is solved, but bugs are not.”

- Source: Guillermo Rauch
- Published: 2026-11-06T18:46:25.000Z
- Bad Influence: https://badinfluence.news/items/jftla4ghhmrdgmcuniq96iqiq
- Original: https://x.com/rauchg/status/2118777039226642547

## Summary

Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch says developers should capture production traces and optimize software based on real user behavior. He says engineers should instrument the system and collect data before writing code, and that an agent can be asked to analyze those traces today. He points to Vercel Tracing, now generally available on all plans and on by default for new Next.js 16.5 projects.

## Post

I unironically agree with @bcherny’s take that “coding is solved, but bugs are not.”

The deeper meaning is that you can in theory code *anything* now. You can burn infinite tokens refining and optimizing. Including optimizations that no one will care about 💀 

With Vercel you can build a different kind of recursive improvement loop. You capture traces from production, you then optimize and course-correct based on how your software is being used IRL.

This is not a new idea. The best engineers I’ve ever worked with never jumped into coding (now prompting) right away. You instrument the system, collect data, understand distributions, user journeys, and then put fingers on keyboard.

You can ask your agent today to look at your traces!

## Quoted post @vercel_dev

> Vercel Tracing is now GA on all plans.
> 
> Starting with Next.js 16.5, new projects have it on by default. Search and inspect spans from the dashboard or the CLI.
> 
> ▲ ~/ vercel traces search --status error
> 
> https://vercel.com/changelog/vercel-tracing-is-now-generally-available-ca4fcbc8d401376e6b60d233/1794504064925-5808260d1d8fa79a5a3924101fb6def7cb772bccfc79585887d0d79aca282d8a

https://x.com/vercel_dev/status/2118754670961360994