The Short Leash AI Coding Method For Beating Fable

TLDR Dev · 2 weeks ago ● 6 sources

A software developer describes a "short leash" method for using AI coding agents to produce high-quality software in security-critical systems, where developers maintain constant control and review of AI-proposed changes rather than letting agents work autonomously. The approach requires keeping the AI in a tight feedback loop, reviewing every diff before approval, making commits after each subtask, and having humans review their own AI-assisted pull requests line-by-line. This contrasts with popular "vibe engineering" approaches where developers minimize involvement, and the author argues it produces better results even with non-frontier models because developers stay informed about their codebase and catch quality issues early.