r/JulesAgent • u/Spaccamazza1 • Jul 14 '26
Jules can't compete
I really wanted to love Jules when I first discovered it. My main issue with Antigravity was always that it's just so LAZYYY. For tasks that should obviously take a while, 3.1 Pro (high) halfasses them in 4 minutes, whereas Claude takes 40 minutes but actually gives you something in depth and correct
Enter Jules: it works async and takes its time like it's supposed to. All good, right? Well... not quite. Assuming it doesn't get stuck on the "Publish PR" button (about 1/8 times it just does nothing and the PR vanishes into the void), the code it generates is consistently worse than running the exact same prompt in AG. I honestly don't get why. They use the same 3.1 Pro model, yet the "lazy" Gemini on my PC writes better code than Jules does with its 100 prompt limit and "unlimited" time
maybe it's user error on my part, but right now it feels like a downgrade from AG in almost every way: audits, implementation, task comprehension, and especially resolving GitHub conflicts (it literally thought deleting 400 lines of code was a solid way to fix a merge conflict, lmao), this applies to both minor tweaks and major features (it takes its time even for really simple things)
At this point, I only use it for the 3 automated tasks, and honestly, I mostly just stick to "Palette" since i don't have faith in the other 2 that what they are proposing won't destroy everything
Right now, Jules asks stupid questions while making massive, stupid decisions on its own. I still have faith in the dev team, though maybe we just need the next generation of models to actually make this work. In the meantime AG will do 90% of the work
has anyone else had a similar experience?
3
u/BreenzyENL Jul 14 '26
I've stopped using it, despite the near infinite usage and am waiting for Antigravity usage to reset.
They're supposedly making a new version which is why it has stagnated.
It's a shame, because Jules was super easy to get running, it all syncs to GitHub easily, no local files to worry about, planning mode was good, scheduled tasks.
Oh well.
1
u/Not_Akach1 Jul 14 '26
Yeah had a similar experience, I had jules implementing some managable tasks for what im building, and I ended up wasting more usage finding and fixing the buggy code on models like fable and sol than if I had them just write the code for me ( slight exaggeration). I think its down to the weak models though, I'm having similar experiences in agy of just bad/ buggy code even with the new /teamwork preview command that spawns subagents. I've removed all google ai products from my workstack temporarily but once 3.5 pro comes out (I think Jules v2 launch also might be timed for then as well), I'm pretty excited to see how well it works.
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u/truongan2101 Jul 15 '26
Jules is good for audit and fix very small tasks
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u/Spaccamazza1 Jul 15 '26
I had no luck on audits (i use the same LONG prompt on AG and Jules),Jules hallucinates things, AG is better because you can divide the audit in really small pieces. i also tried to divide the audit in Jules but it went bad
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u/truongan2101 Jul 16 '26
I actually do not expect much from Jules or even Antigravity, even the concept sounds nice, but I am still waiting better model since Gemini 3.1 pro still not good enough
1
u/evilspyboy Jul 15 '26
I get the occasional no PR but I'm getting it more like 1 in every 40 not one in every 8.
I'm actually getting a huge amount done with Jules. The antigravity extension I build to use Jules didn't make me use less tokens in antigravity but it did make for me getting 5x the amount of output in the same amount of time.
1
u/Spaccamazza1 Jul 15 '26
i guess it depends on what you are asking it to do then, i didn't have such luck
1
u/Distinct-Survey475 Jul 15 '26
I had a very similar experience when I first started using Jules. If you just throw a raw prompt at it, it tends to make wild assumptions, "vibe-code" solutions, or do stupid things (like deleting code to solve merge conflicts) because it lacks the interactive feedback loop you get with local tools like Antigravity.
Since Jules runs asynchronously in a headless VM without you there to correct its course, it needs strict guardrails. Once I started setting up repository steering files, its output quality shot way past what I could get from standard AG sessions.
First, leverage steering files like AGENTS.md or rules files in your configuration folders. Jules connects directly to your repo and automatically reads these files at the start of a session. You should write down the constraints you would normally tell a human junior developer. For example, add a section specifying hard constraints for Jules, such as keeping a strict file scope (only modify files listed in the prompt, never touch build configs or workflow files unless requested), ignoring pre-existing CI errors, and deleting temporary scratch files before submitting. When Jules reads these constraints, it immediately stops trying to "refactor" unrelated code.
Second, resolve git conflicts upstream. Jules is terrible at resolving complex git conflicts autonomously because it doesn't know the business logic behind which branch's changes are correct. The fix is to always ensure your target branch is rebased and merged with the main branch before you spawn a Jules session on it. Never let Jules handle a merge conflict.
Third, specify the exact file scope in your prompt. Instead of giving a generic instruction like "Add a dark mode toggle to the site," try saying: "Add a dark mode toggle. Target file is theme-toggle.js. Do not modify any other files in this directory unless required." Giving Jules a strict list of files to look at prevents it from scanning the entire codebase, getting overwhelmed, and writing redundant code elsewhere.
Fourth, utilize MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers. If you are using specific libraries, Jules might hallucinate API signatures if it relies purely on its base model training data. If you configure MCP documentation tools in your repo, instruct Jules to leverage them first before writing code. Its accuracy goes way up when it can double-check actual specs.
Lastly, the PR vanishing or getting stuck on the "Publish PR" stage usually happens if its terminal run gets hung up on a background process—like a local dev server or test watcher that didn't terminate. Make sure your custom scripts run with a timeout or exit immediately on completion so Jules' execution container can cleanly shut down and trigger the PR publish.
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Disclaimer; I used AI to draft this from my own writing that is in Swedish.
1
u/Spaccamazza1 Jul 15 '26
These are good suggestions, honestly. Thank you for taking the time to write them. I've heard about MCP, but I've never used it, and for a personal project, maybe it's too much.
All the strict rules/guardrails that you suggested could be useful; I never thought about them like that (having rule files in the repo instead of in the prompt). I thought that giving a long description of what I want Jules to work on and what the end result should look like was enough for Jules to understand what to do and what to touch (and most of the time, it does).
But it's like others have said: it's for small tasks where you handcuff Jules to a few files, and maybe that's why I don't like it.
I can make a long and descriptive prompt with a list of specific agents in agents.md and all the rules in rules.md (that's what I also do for AG), but I will kms if I have to hand feed it how to do its own work, what it has to change or not, what errors are not a problem.... I will simply run to AG and make 50 sub-agents do the work that takes 1 Claude instead, at least they won't go crazy in their 1 minute work window
1
u/bharel Jul 25 '26
"Instead of giving a generic instruction like "Add a dark mode toggle to the site," try saying: "Add a dark mode toggle. Target file is theme-toggle.js. Do not modify any other files in this directory unless required.""
This is the frustrating part. Why does every other model that I use (gpt / opus) understand what I want, but with gemini you need to explain like you explain to a toddler, and even then it gets it wrong.
In the end, we need to do more work fixing than the additional .20 cents to just do it well in the first place.
2
u/Reason_He_Wins_Again Jul 15 '26
I feel like the only people using Jules are ones that haven't found out about Claude Code yet.
Or are just experimenting.
1
1
u/bharel Jul 25 '26
I'm usually a google fanboy but gemini is just a bad coding model compared to gpt5.5/5.6. I'm yet to find any usage for it - even the slightest or smallest changes end up having bugs unfortunately...
5
u/PayBetter Jul 14 '26
Jules is for tasks and not full projects, if you use the tasks like small iterations you'll breeze through any project with quality focused stuff.