[tuo-lei]

maintenance cost on AI code isn't really uniform per line. most of it follows standard patterns, maybe easier to maintain than average human code. but the 5% where something went subtly wrong costs way more to fix because you can't retrace the reasoning, you just re-derive the whole thing from scratch. average looks fine but the tail kills you.

[azurewraith]

The "can't retrace the reasoning" problem is solvable with deterministic workflow constraints. Agents currently run with carte blanche, and they take a mile if given an inch. If the agent was in a specific phase with only specific tools available (and guarded against mega edits) the decision trace is there in the workflow definition. Moving to the next phase is a result of solving the current phase, with a reasoning. If you have no guardrails then there is no observability.