Hands On With Antigravity A Test Architect S Deep Dive Into Google S

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Jan 24, 2026, 7:07 AM

hands on with antigravity a test architect s deep dive into google s

We’re so glad you’re here. You can expect all the best TNS content to arrive Monday through Friday to keep you on top of the news and at the top of your game. Check your inbox for a confirmation email where you can adjust your preferences and even join additional groups. Follow TNS on your favorite social media networks. Check out the latest featured and trending stories while you wait for your first TNS newsletter. When Google launched a new agentic development platform called Antgravity this week, the first question I had was: “What about Jules and Gemini CLI?” But remember, this is Google; they throw a lot of...

So Google considers Antigravity and Jules to be experiments that examine the same technology from different angles. On November 18, 2025, Google launched Antigravity, a groundbreaking agentic development platform designed to transform the way developers build, test, and verify software. Powered by Google’s latest AI model Gemini 3, Antigravity is positioned as an evolution of the traditional IDE into an agent-first environment, where intelligent agents autonomously plan, execute, and validate complex software tasks on... Antigravity elevates AI from being a mere assistant to a dedicated partner in coding. Unlike traditional IDEs that offer autocomplete and code suggestions, Antigravity integrates agents as first-class workers with direct access to critical tool surfaces including the editor, terminal, and browser. This enables agents to work autonomously, coordinating complex tasks that span coding, debugging, and even browser-driven interactions such as visual verification and quality assurance.

Developers can focus at a higher abstraction level—managing tasks and workflows—while the platform handles low-level execution details. This shift promises significant productivity gains and enables truly end-to-end agentic development workflows. Google has built Antigravity around four foundational principles that set it apart: Antigravity offers two main views optimized for distinct interaction modes: The developer's role is shifting, moving from a hands-on coder to a high-level architect managing autonomous systems. Google Antigravity addresses this shift: a highly integrated development environment (IDE) that goes beyond simple code suggestion.

While it may look familiar, Antigravity is positioned as a foundationally different editor, built specifically to leverage the power of the Gemini 3 Pro coding agent for native, autonomous assistance (Preston, 2025). Understanding Antigravity requires looking past the surface to its "agent-first" architecture, its key differences from Visual Studio Code, and the practical reasons a developer might choose to adopt it. The first and most apparent fact about Antigravity is its familiar appearance. It is a codebase fork derived from the popular open-source VS Code project (Aguilar, 2025). This decision provides an immediate, low-friction onboarding experience for millions of developers. However, the architecture diverges sharply from VS Code's extension model, where AI assistants like Copilot are added as plugins.

Google chose to create a deep fork primarily for the necessity of secure, native integration with its proprietary Google Cloud tools and, most critically, a seamless connection to the Gemini AI model. This tight integration allows Antigravity to treat the AI agent as a system-level primitive. Functionally, it is a robust, cross-platform IDE similar to VS Code for basic editing, but it is optimized internally for accelerated, automated development within the Google ecosystem. The core distinction of Antigravity is the deep, system-level integration of the Gemini 3 Pro agent, which fundamentally changes the developer's role (Preston, 2025). Antigravity introduces two distinct user interfaces: the familiar Editor View and a new Agent Manager View (Google Antigravity, 2025). The Agent Manager is the "mission control," designed for high-level orchestration, enabling developers to spawn and supervise multiple AI agents working asynchronously.

This allows a developer to act as an architect, delegating complex, end-to-end missions to the AI. The next evolution of the IDE? 🚀 I highly recommend checking out this hands-on deep dive into Google Antigravity (AGY) with Varun Mohan, the project's co-lead at Google DeepMind. Varun’s perspective is particularly valuable here—he was previously the Co-Founder and CEO of Windsurf before joining Google DeepMind just 5 months ago. Seeing him apply that deep domain expertise to Google's infrastructure is fascinating. Key takeaways from the video: - Beyond Autocomplete: It’s about orchestrating multiple agents in parallel to handle complex tasks.

- Browser Agents: Powered by Gemini 3, agents can actually browse the web to research docs and test UI. - Artifacts: A new workflow for reviewing high-level plans and designs, not just code diffs. The "Airbnb for dogs" demo is a must-see to understand how agents can build, verify, and iterate autonomously. Watch here: 👇 https://lnkd.in/egcuJ36s 🚀 Google Antigravity — Hands-On with a New Agentic Development Platform Recently watched “Google Antigravity: Hands on with our new agentic development platform” on Google for Developers, featuring Varun Mohan and Logan Kilpatrick. It’s a compelling look at how agentic IDEs are reshaping modern software development.

Antigravity positions agents as first-class citizens—not just code generators—combining a familiar IDE experience with browser verification, artifacts, and Gemini 3 capabilities. 🔍 What Stood Out Agent development at scale: orchestrating complex, multi-step workflows Artifacts as a core interaction pattern for state, memory, and communication Human–agent collaboration: balancing automation with review and control Browser actuation &... 🚀 Why This Matters Antigravity signals a broader transition toward: Agent-first developer experiences Long-running, context-aware systems Multimodal workflows grounded in real-world verification Faster iteration from prototype to production This isn’t autocomplete—it’s a new paradigm... Highly recommended for anyone working in AI Engineering, Agentic Systems, LLM Tooling, and Developer Experience. #GoogleAntigravity #AgenticAI #AIEngineering #DeveloperTools #Gemini #LLMOps #FutureOfIDE #BuildWithAI Google Google DeepMind Antigravity.Google https://lnkd.in/greZZNDT Google started rolling out Super GEMs to some users.

A new GEMs Manager now has a "Gems from Labs" section with pre-built and custom workflows from Opal experiment. Users will be able to create and share visual workflows right inside Gemini. Google has introduced Antigravity, an IDE for Rapid Agentic Development, which significantly changes the landscape for developers. Key features of Antigravity include: - Users can provide feedback directly within the IDE for the web pages they create, distinguishing it from Figma, where designs must be converted into HTML pages separately. - Accelerated design cycles enable faster product roll-outs to market. - The ability to act and pivot quickly helps keep pace with competitors.

- Automated test case generation eliminates the need for manual test case writing. - A browser extension conducts Integration, Functional, and UI tests, reducing the need for follow-ups with QA teams. With Antigravity, developers can focus on their work without the stress of weekend tasks due to late QA reports 😛 For more information on Antigravity, visit: https://lnkd.in/gHqUx9MD #frontenddevelopment #LoveYourDevelopers #AgenticAI #AIAgents #AI #ML #IDE... I am using Google Antigravity IDE for a while now, and it is a game-changer. 🚀 What stood out first was how quickly it removes friction. No local setup, no environment mismatch, no dependency drama.

Code runs instantly in the cloud, which means more time building and less time fixing “works on my machine” problems. The AI assistance feels less like autocomplete and more like a thoughtful second developer. It understands context, suggests cleaner logic, and helps refactor code without breaking flow. When something goes wrong, the built-in debugging explains errors in plain language and nudges you toward the right fix instead of sending you down a Stack Overflow rabbit hole. Collaboration is where it really shines. Real-time editing and shared debugging make pair programming feel natural, not forced.

It’s surprisingly productive and refreshingly calm. 🔗 Overall, Antigravity doesn’t try to replace how developers think. It simply removes the weight that slows us down. And once that weight is gone, building software feel lighter. 💻 https://lnkd.in/ejfE7he5 #GoogleAntigravity #CloudIDE #AIForDevelopers #DeveloperExperience #Productivity #SoftwareEngineering Google just launched Antigravity, their new AI-powered IDE, and it's generating quite a buzz.

After committing to using it exclusively for an entire day (no VS Code or Cursor), I have some insights to share about what makes it unique and where it falls short. Google Antigravity showcases an innovative design philosophy with clear standout features, though it's not quite ready to "completely replace Cursor" yet. However, it's exceptionally well-suited for product managers and non-technical founders who want to be more hands-on with development. Perfect for Product Managers: Antigravity transforms how PMs work. Previously, PMs would "design the product, then supervise multiple human collaborators making micro-decisions." Now, PMs can "design the product, then supervise Antigravity making those micro-decisions." Agent-First Architecture: The core design philosophy revolves around "collaborative coding agents." Two critical aspects: agent-first approach and seamless human collaboration.

Built-in Browser Excellence: While Cursor also has a built-in browser, Antigravity excels in the interaction and collaboration flow, especially when simultaneously using the browser and code to debug issues. Antigravity is Google DeepMind’s push toward an agent-first way of building software. Instead of treating AI like a smarter autocomplete, it treats AI like a capable collaborator that can take on real tasks, run with them, and come back with something you can review. What sets Antigravity apart is how it brings three surfaces into one workflow: a familiar editor for hands-on control, an Agent Manager that coordinates multiple autonomous tasks (so work can happen in parallel), and... I tested Antigravity myself in a small project, and it genuinely surprised me: in a short session, I went from “idea” to a working web app with far less manual glue work than I... That hands-on experience is what made me want to break the workflow down, because it feels less like a novelty and more like a shift in how you run development.

Antigravity is easiest to understand if you stop thinking “IDE with an assistant” and start thinking “one workflow split across three surfaces.” Each surface is optimized for a different part of modern dev work:... The Agent Manager is the coordination layer. It is where you create, run, and monitor agents across multiple workspaces, especially when you want work happening in parallel. Think of this as mission control for agent workstreams.

Hands On With Antigravity A Test Architect S Deep Dive Into Google S

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