Amp co-creator Thorsten Ball shares his approach to prompting coding agents at Laracon US
At Laracon US 2026, Thorsten Ball, co-founder of the coding agent Amp, gave a talk titled 'How I Prompt,' detailing his personal methods for instructing AI coding agents. He drew on his background at Sourcegraph and Zed, and his role building Amp, which launched shortly after Claude Code and has been praised for its polish and usability.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
As AI coding agents become central to developer workflows, practical guidance from someone who builds these tools carries more weight than generic AI hype. Ball's talk offers developers concrete, experience-based techniques rather than abstract claims, which is valuable in a space often criticized for lacking real shipped products behind the talk.
- Thorsten Ball, co-creator of coding agent Amp, presented at Laracon US on his personal prompting techniques.
- Amp launched shortly after Claude Code and has been noted for its refined, high-quality interface.
- Ball's experience spans Sourcegraph and Zed, giving his insights on AI coding agents added credibility.
Thorsten Ball "Writing An Interpreter In Go — The talk's intro name-drops Thorsten Ball's books, and this is the one that made his name: a hands-on walkthrough of building an interpreter for a language from scratch in Go. It's a great companion read if you want to understand the machinery under the tools, not just prompt them.
See Thorsten Ball "Writing An Interpreter In Go on Amazon → Affiliate link — we may earn a commission on purchases, at no extra cost to you. Product picked by AI based on this article; it is not a tested recommendation.Source: thorstenball.com, 2026-09-09
Published there as: “How I Prompt”
Read the original report → The summary and analysis above are GoKawiil's own, written from reporting by the source above. Facts and quotes belong to the original publisher.