{"id":21949,"date":"2025-08-29T10:44:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T09:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.equalexperts.com\/?p=21949"},"modified":"2025-08-29T15:41:02","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T14:41:02","slug":"gpt5-one-shot-test-coding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.equalexperts.com\/blog\/ai\/gpt5-one-shot-test-coding\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooking while GPT-5 cooks: testing a one shot, unsupervised prompt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Like many of you who live deep in the world of software engineering, I\u2019ve been following the buzz around GPT-5\u2014especially its ability to stay on task.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s what I care about. If I can trust a model to get on with a job while I\u2019m in a standup or grabbing lunch, we\u2019re getting closer to real delegation.<\/p>\n<p>So I put it to the test. I gave GPT-5 a minimal one-shot prompt: upgrade an old Google Scholar scraper, build the project out, and deploy it. Then I walked away.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>What stood out<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><strong>Focused follow-through:<\/strong> It parsed the blog post, understood the APIs, and built the full tool\u2014README, tests, Docker, Cloud Build and all.<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><strong>Self-correcting:<\/strong> When it hit errors, it often fixed them\u2014though not always without a nudge.<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><strong>Context retention:<\/strong> It held the task in mind better than Claude Sonnet 4, even across multiple attempts.<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><strong>Still needs supervision:<\/strong> It got stuck in an infinite loop and missed that a key API was deprecated.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Bottom line? GPT-5 is the first model I\u2019ve tested that feels like it\u2019s approaching useful autonomy for real engineering work\u2014but it\u2019s not fully hands-off yet.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Want to see what happened?<\/h2>\n<p>I walk through the full run in the video\u2014errors, fixes, decisions, and all. If you\u2019re wondering what GPT-5 is really capable of in a dev workflow, it\u2019s worth a watch.<\/p>\n<p>Watch the demo:<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Can GPT-5 code without supervision? | One-shot prompt experiment\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pzq4ypQTZcQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Thoughts? Let&#8217;s talk: <a href=\"mailto:Tommy.Hinrichs@equalexperts.com\">Tommy.Hinrichs@equalexperts.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Disclaimer:<\/strong> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This demo is for educational and exploratory purposes only. Equal Experts is not affiliated with OpenAI or any AI tool provider mentioned. All views expressed are those of Tommy Hinrichs.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Like many of you who live deep in the world of software engineering, I\u2019ve been following the buzz around GPT-5\u2014especially its ability to stay on task. That\u2019s what I care about. If I can trust a model to get on with a job while I\u2019m in a standup or grabbing lunch, we\u2019re getting closer to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":289,"featured_media":21956,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[412,917],"tags":[918,919,101,267,873,209],"location":[],"class_list":["post-21949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai","category-experiment-with-us","tag-ai-engineering","tag-ai-tools","tag-automation","tag-machine-learning","tag-prompt-engineering","tag-software-delivery"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Can GPT-5 code while you cook? A one-shot prompt test<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Tommy Hinrichs tests GPT-5\u2019s focus with a one-shot coding prompt. Can it deliver working code while he grabs lunch? Watch the full demo.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.equalexperts.com\/blog\/ai\/gpt5-one-shot-test-coding\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cooking while GPT-5 cooks: testing a one shot, unsupervised prompt\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tommy Hinrichs tests GPT-5\u2019s focus with a one-shot coding prompt. Can it deliver working code while he grabs lunch? Watch the full demo.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.equalexperts.com\/blog\/ai\/gpt5-one-shot-test-coding\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Equal Experts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-08-29T09:44:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-08-29T14:41:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.equalexperts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/TommyH_BlogImage_1200x628px.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tommy Hinrichs\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@EqualExperts\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@EqualExperts\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tommy Hinrichs\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.equalexperts.com\/blog\/ai\/gpt5-one-shot-test-coding\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.equalexperts.com\/blog\/ai\/gpt5-one-shot-test-coding\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Tommy Hinrichs\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.equalexperts.com\/#\/schema\/person\/eeff83202e7680e40b72692e1aa2056c\"},\"headline\":\"Cooking while GPT-5 cooks: testing a one shot, unsupervised prompt\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-08-29T09:44:06+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-08-29T14:41:02+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.equalexperts.com\/blog\/ai\/gpt5-one-shot-test-coding\/\"},\"wordCount\":294,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.equalexperts.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.equalexperts.com\/blog\/ai\/gpt5-one-shot-test-coding\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.equalexperts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/TommyH_BlogImage_1200x628px.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"AI engineering\",\"AI tools\",\"automation\",\"machine learning\",\"prompt engineering\",\"software delivery\"],\"articleSection\":[\"AI\",\"Experiment with us\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.equalexperts.com\/blog\/ai\/gpt5-one-shot-test-coding\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.equalexperts.com\/blog\/ai\/gpt5-one-shot-test-coding\/\",\"name\":\"Can GPT-5 code while you cook? 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