AI coding agents are great at speed, but I only trust them in production after three gates.
Gate 1: scope gate
The task has to be narrow enough that a human reviewer can explain the expected diff in one sentence. If I can't describe the change clearly, the agent usually expands the blast radius.
Gate 2: verification gate
Before merge, I want at least one fast test, one failure-path check, and one plain-English review note. "It ran" is not enough. I need to know what was checked and what was intentionally left unchecked.
Gate 3: cost + rollback gate
If the agent triggers extra APIs, background jobs, or long CI runs, I estimate the cost first. And if I can't roll the change back in minutes, it should not ship automatically.
The pattern that helped most: let the agent draft, let tests narrow the risk, and let humans own the final release decision.
Curious what your gate is before AI-generated code touches prod: permissions, tests, or rollback?
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