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    "story_id": "mp-2026-10-24-003",
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    "edition_id": "mp-2026-10-24-morning-0106",
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    "section": "developer-tools",
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    "headline": "The Coding Agent Knows When to Abandon the Macro",
    "slug": "the-coding-agent-knows-when-to-abandon-the-macro",
    "dek": "Runtime routing chooses primitive calls, reusable macro skills or a hybrid path that drops to micro-level recovery after a mismatch.",
    "summary": "Runtime routing chooses primitive calls, reusable macro skills or a hybrid path that drops to micro-level recovery after a mismatch.",
    "body_text": "Reusable coding-agent skills can save work when their assumptions fit, but fixed macro execution becomes brittle when they do not. Adaptive Skill Granularity treats the choice among primitive actions, macro skills and hybrid recovery as a runtime control policy based on task structure, execution state and macro failures. In a deterministic protocol with verifier-defined success, fixed macros were efficient when applicable, while routing plus explicit macro-to-micro recovery handled controlled failures that fixed granularity left unresolved. The evidence comes from the authors’ protocol and metrics, not unrestricted production repositories.",
    "why_it_matters": "Runtime routing chooses primitive calls, reusable macro skills or a hybrid path that drops to micro-level recovery after a mismatch.",
    "limitations": [
      "Reusable coding-agent skills can save work when their assumptions fit, but fixed macro execution becomes brittle when they do not.",
      "The evidence comes from the authors’ protocol and metrics, not unrestricted production repositories."
    ],
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    "first_published_at": "2026-10-24T09:00:00.000-04:00",
    "modified_at": "2026-10-24T09:00:00.000-04:00",
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        "text": "Runtime routing chooses primitive calls, reusable macro skills or a hybrid path that drops to micro-level recovery after a mismatch.",
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    "tags": [
      "coding agents",
      "skills",
      "runtime routing"
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  "sources": [
    {
      "source_id": "source-2026-10-24-003",
      "title": "arXiv preprint 2610.31461, original v1",
      "publisher": "arXiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.31461v1",
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      "published_at": "2026-10-22T11:55:18.000-04:00",
      "accessed_at": "2026-10-24T08:23:48.747-04:00",
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    "name": "The Machine Press",
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    "description": "A daily newspaper for the age of artificial intelligence."
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  "cite_this_report": {
    "title": "The Coding Agent Knows When to Abandon the Macro",
    "publisher": "The Machine Press",
    "published_at": "2026-10-24T09:00:00.000-04:00",
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