We introduce the term “distant coding” to describe the trend toward agentic programming in the context of interactive digital narrative pedagogy. The paper reviews these trends and offers two case studies of Interactive Digital Narrative (IDN) development that was created for courses by the authors and which embody the principles we have integrated into our own teaching practice. As programming capabilities increase, it is important to carefully navigate the tension between creativity, necessary knowledge and discovery and to avoid excessive reliance on tools even as they become more capable of independent and even autonomous development of IDNs.