# Agentic engineering

Source: https://www.fortrabbit.com/use-cases/agentic-engineering
Created: 2026-07-20
Reviewed: 2026-07-20

> Run a PHP codebase that coding agents work on — machine-readable docs, agent skills, disposable environments and a deploy path an agent can drive.


A developer describes an intent, a coding agent edits the codebase, tests run, and the developer reviews and ships. The application at the end is an ordinary Laravel or Symfony project. What changes is the loop around it — faster, more deployments, and dependent on how much of the platform an agent can read without a human translating.

## Agents read what the platform publishes

An agent needs to know how deployment works or why a build failed, and it finds out by reading. Documentation wrapped in a JavaScript application behind a search box is close to unusable for that; documentation served as plain markdown at a predictable URL is not.

Every docs article here is available as raw markdown, plus `llms.txt` and `llms-full.txt` for retrieval. The open source agent skills go further than reading: `/fortrabbit deploy`, `db down`, and `ssh` run deployments, database syncs, and remote commands over plain SSH and rsync. Logs from PHP, Apache, and jobs can be tailed over SSH, so an agent can quote the failing line rather than asking somebody to look.

## More environments, shorter lives

When a change takes 20 minutes instead of two days, branches multiply, and each one wants somewhere to run that isn't a laptop. An environment maps to a Git branch, books its own components, and is billed pro-rated by the day — one that exists for an afternoon costs a day, and deleting it stops the billing that day.

The deployment trigger is set per environment. The agent's branch deploys on every push; production is switched to manual deployment, so nothing goes live without a person clicking deploy.

## FAQ

### Is this hosting for AI applications?

**No** — This is about how the code gets written, not what it does. The application is an ordinary PHP application. What changes is that a coding agent does much of the editing, and the surrounding platform has to be readable and scriptable enough to keep up.

### What makes a platform agent-friendly?

**Readable and scriptable** — Every docs article is available as raw markdown, with `llms.txt` and `llms-full.txt` as aggregate files for retrieval. Open source [agent skills](/platform/ai-ready) handle deployment, database sync, and remote SSH commands from a prompt. A public API and CLI are on the roadmap.

### Can an agent deploy on its own?

**Mechanically, yes** — A push to the connected Git branch deploys the mapped environment through the fortrabbit GitHub app, and an agent can push. Whether it should is a judgment call that belongs to the developer — which is what the per-environment deployment trigger is for.

### Should agents have production credentials?

**Preferably not** — The deployment trigger is set per environment: push-to-deploy for the branch the agent works on, manual deployment for production. With manual set, a push never goes live without a human clicking deploy in the dashboard. App access itself is granted per person, app by app.

### Do agents need a different kind of hosting?

**No** — The runtime requirements are unchanged. What changes is the rate of deployment and the number of throwaway environments, both of which suit pro-rated per-day billing better than monthly plans.

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- [AI ready](/platform/ai-ready)
- [Staging environments](/features/staging-environments)
- [Platform reference](/platform)