Cloud background agents

Cloud background agents are AI coding assistants that run on the vendor's servers instead of on your own computer. You give them a task, such as fixing a bug or adding a small feature, and they carry on working while your laptop is closed or you are busy with something else. When finished, they return their changes for you to review. Claude Code and Cursor are listed with this feature.

Coding assistants running on your own machine tie up your attention and your computer. Background agents let one person hand off several tasks at once and come back to finished work, which suits small teams with a long list of minor jobs. You need this if you manage a codebase with a steady flow of small changes. If you only use AI for occasional help while you write code yourself, it is not essential.

• Ask what the agent can access, for example your code repository and any secrets or keys it needs, and how that access is secured.
• Test with a small, low-risk task and review exactly what it changed.
• Check how its work is handed back, for instance as a proposed change that a person must approve.
• Find out how running time is counted against your plan.