Field Notes / AI Engineering Control
Agents work better as advisors
A practical boundary for agentic engineering when confident automation is still wrong often enough to matter.
An agent can broaden a review without becoming the authority that accepts the change.
First-hand context
I used agents to surface risks and alternatives while keeping the final engineering judgment with a person.
Decision record
The decision and its trade-off
More autonomy creates speed, but it also hides uncertainty behind fluent output.
What can be inspected
The useful artifact is a review contract: the agent advises, the owner checks, and the decision remains attributable.
What failed or remains uncertain
Approximate result figures stay withheld until their baseline and human-review boundary have an approved claim.
Field rule
A reusable principle
Automate the search for issues before you automate authority over the answer.