Preconfiguration Writes Coding Agent Setup Files From One Spec and Tests Them on a Clean Machine
Cloud coding agents start each task on a fresh machine. Before the agent can run a single test, something has to install the right runtime and start the database, and every platform wants those instructions in its own file. Copilot runs a setup workflow; Cursor builds a Dockerfile. A team that uses two or three agents writes the same setup two or three times, and a mistake usually shows up later as an agent session that goes nowhere.
Preconfiguration treats those files as build output. You describe the machine once, in a short preconfig.yaml, and preconfig build writes the file each platform reads. preconfig check reads existing files against each platform’s rules, which catches the quiet mistakes, like a Copilot job with the wrong name.
Then preconfig verify does what a reviewer can’t. It runs the setup on an empty Ubuntu container and then runs the project’s tests. A setup file can look fine and still fail; a machine that started empty and passes the tests is the proof.
When a setup breaks anyway, Preconfig Doctor reads the log, which can run past a thousand lines, and names the cause. If the fix belongs in the spec, it writes it there. Doctor works from rules with no model behind it, so the same log always gets the same answer.
Both are Alphas, measured on one Linux machine, and runs on the agent platforms themselves come with the Beta. The live demo mixes recorded runs with the real code running in your browser, and Doctor has a demo of its own.