C++ codebase standard migration

Hi,


I have a large legacy code project at work, which is almost fully c++. Most of the code is in C++14, small parts are written with C++20, but nothing is older than 14. The codebase is compiled in MSVC, and it is completely based on .vcxproj files. And the code is mostly monolithic.

I would like to improve on all of these points:

1. Migrating to C++17 or later

2. Migrating to CMake.

3. Compile with GCC

4. Break the monolith into services or at least smaller components

Each of these points will require a lot of work. For example, I migrated one pretty small component to CMake and this took a long time, also since there are many nuances and that is a pretty esoteric task.

I want to see whether I can use agents to do any of these tasks. The thing is I have no experience with them, and everything I see online sounds pretty abstract. On top of that, my organisation has too strict and weird cyber rules which limit usage of various models, so I thought I'd start working with "weak" models like Qwen or gpt-oss and at least make some kind of POC so I can get an approval of using more advanced infrastructure available in the company.


So, I'm looking for advice on that - is this even feasible or fitting to use agents? what would be a good starting point? Is any open source model good enough for that, even as a POC on a small componenet?


Thank you!



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