Speed up Rust code by having agents iteratively optimize it
Documented elsewhere: max Woolf had agents write Rust crates from scratch (UMAP first) with criterion benchmarks. He prompted them to record a baseline, then iterate until every benchmark ran at least 1.2x faster, with no unsafe code and no editing the benchmarks. Each new model gave a cumulative 1.
- Agent or tool
- Make
- Topic
- Productivity
- Reported on
- Hacker News
- Added
- 2026-10-15
Why it matters
Small, repetitive tasks eat more of the week than anyone likes to admit. Cases like this show an agent taking a chore off someone's plate end to end, not just suggesting what to do. It is one of 196 sightings filed under Productivity on Agent Sightings (number 135 by interest), and one of 10 involving Make.
How you could try it
Here is a reusable prompt, written by us in our own words, that captures the task. Paste it into Make or any similar agent and adjust the details to your situation.
Help me speed up Rust code by having agents iteratively optimize it. Break it into steps, show your work, and wait for confirmation before anything irreversible, paid, or outbound.
Tip: Start small: run it once on a low-stakes example, read what the agent did, and only then let it run on real work.
Source
Read the original first-hand account on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49803085. Our summary is a paraphrase; details are in the source.
Built an AI agent? Feature your agent on Agent Sightings, free submission or a featured spot.