The Pending State Glossary: 20 AI-Coding Loading States, Defined
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If you spend your day building software with an AI coding agent, you have watched it narrate its own thinking in real time. It is ruminating. It is schlepping. It is, occasionally, hallucinating a function that has never existed in any language.
These loading states are secretly the most honest copy in tech. So here is the field guide: twenty phrases from the pending state, each with its real meaning and what your agent is actually doing. One of them, COMBOBULATING…, became Drop 001. The rest are fair game for the next drop, which you can vote on here.
01 / 20Live · Drop 001
COMBOBULATING…
LiterallyThe invented opposite of “discombobulated,” a calm, sorted state no engineer has actually reached.
In the agentIt assembles your feature and your anxiety at the same rate. This one became Drop 001.
02 / 20In the vote
RUMINATING…
LiterallyWhat cows do to grass: chew, swallow, bring it back up, chew again.
In the agentWhat the model does to your one-line prompt for ninety seconds before replying “Sure!”
03 / 20In the vote
SCHLEPPING…
LiterallyYiddish for hauling something heavy and tedious across a distance.
In the agentDragging your entire repo through the context window, one oversized file at a time.
04 / 20In the vote
CEREBRATING…
LiterallyA real, rarely-used word for thinking hard.
In the agentSaid out loud so you know this is the premium, expensive kind of waiting.
05 / 20In the vote
VIBING…
LiterallyGoing with the feeling, no plan required.
In the agentNo spec, no design, and somehow it compiles. The commit message says “it works.”
06 / 20In the vote
SHIMMYING…
LiterallyMoving sideways with a quick shake of the shoulders.
In the agentSliding past the type errors instead of fixing them. Graceful. Mildly alarming.
07 / 20In the vote
FINGALING…
LiterallyNothing. It is not a word in any dictionary.
In the agentImprovising a fix with the confidence of someone who has not read the docs.
08 / 20In the vote
HONKING…
LiterallyThe noise a goose makes.
In the agentLoud, unhelpful, and somehow still shipping. The goose approach to engineering.
09 / 20Candidate
WAFFLING…
LiterallyTalking at length while committing to nothing.
In the agentIt has proposed three approaches and begun exactly zero of them.
10 / 20Candidate
PERCOLATING…
LiterallyWhat coffee does under pressure, slowly.
In the agentWhat your feature does while you go make more coffee.
11 / 20Candidate
MARINATING…
LiterallyLetting food soak in flavor before it is cooked.
In the agentLetting the problem sit in its own juices. Nothing happening, slowly, on purpose.
12 / 20Candidate
NOODLING…
LiterallyIdly improvising, the way a guitarist noodles between songs.
In the agentJamming, not building. Jazz, but for bugs.
13 / 20Candidate
CONFABULATING…
LiterallyA clinical term for inventing memories to fill gaps, sincerely and without realizing it.
In the agentThat one lands differently in 2026.
14 / 20Candidate
YAK-SHAVING…
LiterallyA real engineering term for the endless chain of side-quests needed to do one simple thing.
In the agentFour repositories deep to fix your button padding.
15 / 20Candidate
BIKESHEDDING…
LiterallyArguing about the color of the bike shed instead of building the reactor.
In the agentStrong, unsolicited opinions about your variable names.
16 / 20Candidate
HALLUCINATING…
LiterallyPerceiving something that is not there.
In the agentConfidently citing a function, a flag, or an entire library that does not exist. Beautifully.
17 / 20Candidate
RECALIBRATING…
LiterallyAdjusting an instrument back to a correct baseline.
In the agentQuietly pretending the last three attempts were all part of the plan.
18 / 20Candidate
SPELUNKING…
LiterallyThe sport of exploring caves.
In the agentDescending into a two-hundred-line stack trace with a headlamp and no map.
19 / 20Candidate
PONTIFICATING…
LiterallySpeaking with the pompous authority of a bishop.
In the agentExplaining why the bug was actually a feature all along.
20 / 20Candidate
GESTATING…
LiterallyCarrying and developing something slowly, over weeks.
In the agentYour pull request. “Almost ready” since Tuesday.
Which one belongs on the next shirt?
Some of these are already in the running. The phrase with the most votes gets printed as Drop 002. Cast your vote, or grab COMBOBULATING while it is still live.