11 sessions on rattler-build with a coding agent: the agent failed at least once in 7, and 4 finished without a human stepping in.
Takeaway: Next time I'd give the agent the newer build-helper script location upfront, since a lot of the back-and-forth was chasing down _build_optional_torch_c_dlpack.py and the right compiler/build-step config through trial and error with rattler-build.
Takeaway: Next time I'd tell the agent upfront that the target build host is linux-aarch64 (not macOS) so it skips the Docker/cross-compile detour and gets straight to patching the WORKSPACE.
Takeaway: Next time I'd tell the agent upfront to inspect the actual extracted source tree before writing a patch, since guessing at line numbers from a stale copy wasted two build cycles.
Takeaway: Next time I'd give the agent push rights or a way to open the PR directly, since we hit a 403 at the end after all the fixing was done.
Takeaway: I'd tell the agent upfront to check conda-smithy's GITHUB_ACTIONS_RUNS_ON mapping directly instead of spending several web searches first, since the source code fetch is what actually gave the answer.
Takeaway: Next time I'd tell it up front that macOS ships BSD install, not GNU coreutils, since that's the kind of platform detail it can't discover just by reading the recipe skill and docs.
Takeaway: I'd start the prompt by pointing directly at the go-licenses skill reference since that's what actually solved it — the fix was a known workaround pattern for packages with undetected licenses.
Takeaway: I'd start the prompt by pointing straight at the conda-forge skill's go-licenses reference since that's exactly where the fix came from — it saved a lot of guesswork.
Takeaway: Next time I'd point straight at the go-licenses error and check the skill's reference doc first, since that's exactly the known failure mode for chroma/v2's COPYING file.
Takeaway: Next time I'd start by telling the agent straight away that the failure is likely a go-licenses classification issue for a Go dependency, since that's a known conda-forge pattern.
Takeaway: Next time I'd tell the agent upfront that go-licenses chokes on dependencies with non-standard COPYING files mixing MIT and OFL-1.1, since that's exactly what killed this build.