Comparing Build Agent, IBM BOB, and Google AntiGravity for ServiceNow Internal Developer Portal (IDP

[VaranAwesomenow]

Comparing Build Agent, IBM BOB, and Google AntiGravity for ServiceNow Internal Developer Portal (IDP) Creation

Context

I recently evaluated three AI-assisted approaches—Build Agent, IBM BOB, and Google AntiGravity—to design and generate an Internal Developer Portal (IDP) on ServiceNow, using the Employee Center (ESC) framework and port.io‑inspired concepts.

The core goal across all tools was consistent:

• Generate a ServiceNow Service Portal based on ESC
• Portal URL suffix: idp_esc
• Home page ID: idp_ag_home
• The homepage should be self‑intuitive and usable by multiple engineering personas
• Create and expose the following roles across applications:
  1. Application Developer
  2. Platform Engineer
  3. Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) / Operations Engineer
  4. Security Engineer / Risk & Compliance Owner
  5. Product Owner / Engineering Manager
  6. ServiceNow Platform Administrator

Additionally:

• Creator skill prompts must explicitly mention table access, otherwise record creation fails
• Once a dummy table is created, role creation becomes possible
• Roles should be reusable across other ServiceNow applications

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1. Build Agent

What was asked

• Create ESC-based portal
• Define multiple roles
• Generate a self‑intuitive IDP homepage
• Apply standard ServiceNow-supported theme

What worked

• Understands high-level ServiceNow constructs reasonably well
• Can follow basic ESC and portal creation instructions

Limitations

• Major limitation with prompt size
  Build Agent struggles with large, compound prompts.
  It frequently fails when:
  • Multiple roles are defined
  • Table access constraints are included
  • Portal + homepage + role modeling are requested together

Summary

Build Agent is usable for small, incremental tasks but is not suitable for end-to-end IDP generation where the prompt is large and interconnected.

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2. Google AntiGravity

What was asked

• Create ESC-based portal
• CSS Theme: Google AntiGravity Theme
• Portal suffix: idp_esc
• Homepage ID: idp_ag_home
• Support all six personas
• Follow ServiceNow creator skill constraints

What worked well

• Handled large prompts reliably
• Successfully generated:
  • Portal structure
  • Homepage layout
  • Persona-based access model
• Accurately followed instructions without truncation

Limitations

• Output quality was basic
• Lacked depth in:
  • Advanced ServiceNow patterns
  • Role-to-application reuse nuances
  • Rich IDP experience design

Summary

AntiGravity performs well in executing exactly what is asked, but the output feels minimal and mechanical compared to more advanced assistants.

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3. IBM BOB

What was asked

• Create ESC-based portal
• CSS Theme: IBM Carbon Theme
• Portal suffix: idp_esc
• Homepage ID: idp_ag_home
• Full role model across six personas
• Creator skill table-access awareness

What worked well

• Strong conceptual output
• Rich structure and design ideas
• Far more advanced than Build Agent or AntiGravity in terms of experience design

Unique Strength

BOB offers five distinct operating modes:

• Plan
• Code
• Advanced
• Ask
• Orchestrator

These modes allow deeper reasoning and better architectural flow, especially for IDP-style use cases.

Limitations

• ServiceNow-specific understanding is weaker
• Generated:
  • Placeholder-style page URLs
  • Non-realistic endpoints instead of true ESC/Service Portal navigation
• While powerful, it produced implementation inaccuracies

Summary

IBM BOB produces the richest and most structured output, but requires ServiceNow expertise to fix gaps and errors before real-world use.

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Overall Comparison

Aspect	Build Agent	Google AntiGravity	IBM BOB
Large prompt handling	❌ Weak	✅ Strong	✅ Strong
ESC framework alignment	Basic	Accurate	Conceptual
Role modeling	Limited	Correct	Advanced
Theme support	Standard	Google theme	IBM Carbon
ServiceNow accuracy	Moderate	Good	Lower
Output richness	Low	Medium	High
Errors observed	Prompt truncation	Minimal	Functional inaccuracies

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Final Takeaway

• Build Agent: Best for small, atomic tasks only
• Google AntiGravity: Reliable execution for well-defined requirements, but output is basic
• IBM BOB: Most powerful and flexible, but needs validation due to weaker ServiceNow-specific grounding

Overall, BOB is the easiest to work with conceptually, but even then, it did have errors that required manual correction.

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If anyone else has tried these tools specifically for ServiceNow IDP or ESC-based portals, I’d be interested to hear your experience.