Agent or normal?

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1

Hello,

I wanted to know how do you guys use Composer ? are you using exclusively Composer agent ? or you use normal too ?

i can use deepseek and o3 on normal so i wanted to know if it’s worth because i use only agent so maybe i can optimize my workflow

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I use both.
Both are working great.
My feeling in normal mode you have some more control.
When the project is getting bigger sometiems i prefer normal mode

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If I know exactly what files need to be edited and I’m certain nothing else is required, I will usually use normal mode. This is particularly relevant when I only need a small part of a larger file.

The agent will see the whole file and can get confused by context that is not relevant. But if I know there’s only a certain part of a file that’s relevant, I find the normal composer does a much better job executing the command.

To synthesise, here’s when to use each mode:

  • Normal mode: When you know exactly what your context is and @ it in. Useful when only part of a large file is relevant.
  • Agent mode: When you’re unsure what your context might be, or when the context isn’t that long.
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Just used agent to set up a new node project including firebase with auth and everything. Is an absolute beast, every linter and import error and other stuff like that would be a new composer prompt from me, instead if just kept going and fixed all of them. Set up tailwind, imported lucide and firebase functions and all of that stuff, i just had to press “Run command” at every step. So this process went probably 3-4x faster and took 0 mental energy than if I had did a composer prompt, then check the error, paste in the error, do another composer run, etc. etc

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One request is that it doesnt seem to see my npm run dev terminal window. If it could see that then it would see the compile errors (that aren’t linter errors). Now I have to manually paste these in for it to keep going. Would be absolutely magical if it could see it.

But the agent in its current state at 0.45.11 is an absolute beast I have to say, super pleasant to use. Another minor thing that would be an easy fix and help a lot is if it knew exactly what path it was in, cause sometimes it runs a command in the wrong path if you understand how I mean. Or display to the user where it will run relative to the root

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The normal composer when you need to edit a file only or the single context agent when the edit is multi files and larger context

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Great discussion on this! From what I can see in the docs and based on the experiences shared:

Normal composer is best when:

  • You know exactly what files need changes
  • You want to focus on a specific part of a file
  • You want to use models like DeepSeek or O3
  • You need faster responses

Agent mode shines when:

  • You’re doing multi-file edits
  • Setting up new projects/configurations
  • Handling errors and fixes automatically
  • Working with larger codebases where context matters

Check out our docs on Composer and Agent for more details on each mode’s capabilities