GILD verdict
Pilot Amp if engineers will run several agents at once on cloud machines and review the finished work.
Roll it out wider once a workspace plugin controls what agents run and every project ships to a branch.
Amp
AI Coding Agent by Amp Frontier Corporation
+69 Strong positiveFit and limits
Who it fits
- Engineers want to start agents, close the laptop, and follow each thread from the web or a phone.
- You want Amp to pick and pair models per task, with a second model, the Oracle, checking plans and reviews.
- You want to choose who pays for tokens through Model Routing, with Amp credits at API prices, provider keys, or linked ChatGPT and Claude plans.
- Your team works in the terminal or the browser and does not need the agent inside an IDE.
Where it falls short
- Amp runs tools without approval by default. Gating them takes a plugin your team writes and maintains.
- Per-user spend limits, SCIM, model allowlists, and authentication audit logs are Enterprise features.
- Amp has had no editor extension since March 5, 2026, and sells no self-hosted deployment. Self-hosted orbs, added October 22, 2026, run on your compute and connect back to their threads on ampcode.com.
- Amp retires features it stops using, including the editor extension, handoff, and Amp Free. When four new modes replaced smart, deep, rush, and large on July 9, 2026, Amp shipped the old modes as plugins a team can reinstall.
Implementation reality
Gate tool calls before the first thread
Write a tool.call plugin that allows, rejects, or modifies calls by command and path, and have an admin distribute it workspace-wide. Add amp.mcpPermissions rules for MCP servers, and enforce an MCP registry on Enterprise.
Set Ship Behavior per project
The default Ship button commits, rebases, runs tests, and pushes to the base branch. If the team merges through pull requests, set Ship Behavior to Push to Branch, which reports the pull request URL, or write a custom ship prompt.
Decide whose tokens pay
Pick Amp credits or provider keys as the default payer. Linked ChatGPT plans cover OpenAI roles, and Claude plans cover Claude Code mode. Check the training and retention terms of any linked personal plan. Enterprise can forbid personal keys to enforce one routing policy.
Budget orbs and modes
Set the default orb size and a mode policy before rollout. Orbs bill by the minute. Projects default to a1.medium at US$0.33 per hour, and personal projects on Megawatt default to a1.small at US$0.17. Your own runners cost nothing. Amp reports that self-hosted orbs are free for individuals and teams, and Enterprises pay standard orb pricing for them from October 29, 2026. A thread keeps its starting mode. Use low for small fixes and medium by default, and save high or ultra for costly misses.
Write AGENTS.md once
Keep shared instructions in a versioned AGENTS.md. Amp reads it in the working directory, its parents, and subtrees, plus a workspace file an admin sets. Where no AGENTS.md exists, Amp reads CLAUDE.md, so one file serves Amp and Claude Code.
What to measure in your pilot
- GILD found no public team bill on the July 2026 subscriptions or September 2026 free tier; log amp usage --details per engineer weekly, and price Enterprise if one engineer doubles the median.
- Amp publishes no roadmap for orbs, runners, or modes past 2026; list which ones your workflow depends on and check Amp's news page for retirements before each quarterly renewal.
- Westpac's August 2026 release sets a goal of delivering in weeks and reports no results yet; measure your own ticket-to-merge time before and during the pilot.
Sources
- Official documentation
- 24
- Public source
- 1
- Amp pricing
- Amp docs: Pricing
- Amp docs: Orb sizes & costs
- Amp: Modes & models
- Amp docs: The Dial
- Amp docs: Introduction
- Amp docs: Orbs
- Amp docs: CLI
- Amp docs: Tools
- Amp docs: Plugins
- Amp docs: CLI configuration
- Amp docs: Shipping changes
- Amp docs: Model routing
- Amp docs: AGENTS.md
- Amp docs: Workspaces
- Amp docs: Workspace entitlements
- Amp security reference
- Amp news: The Coding Agent Is Dead (Feb 19, 2026)
- Amp news: Amp Frontier Corporation (Dec 2, 2025)
- Amp news: Free Agent (Sep 13, 2026)
- Amp news: The Dial (Jul 9, 2026)
- Amp news: Banking on the Frontier (Jul 29, 2026)
- Westpac: Westpac and Amp Frontier to partner on AI engineering (Aug 7, 2026)
- Amp news: Self-Hosted Orbs (Oct 22, 2026)
- Amp news: Explain Usage (Aug 21, 2026)