AI coding agents can generate code rapidly, but maintainability remains crucial. Even with AI, you cannot trust models to act with absolute competence, and rewriting large code sections loses valuable context from previous human review and production validation. Code complexity scales exponentially with change size, making reviews of AI-generated rewrites risky. Traditional software engineering principles—clear boundaries, consistent architecture, limited scope changes, and human code review—remain essential. The same practices that make code maintainable also optimize AI usage by reducing required context.
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