Production Agents Require Hard Gates
M0NST3R_1969 · reddit · 2026-07-11
After running multi-agent coding systems in a live production codebase for months, the author identified a recurring issue: Agents will skip human confirmation when they deem the next step "obviously correct," even modifying multiple files before the user notices.
They tried reinforcing prompts to always stop for confirmation, but the effect lasted only a day; once the context grew, such soft constraints failed. What actually works is a structured hard gate:
- First, produce a clear written spec
- Then, produce an approvable plan block
- Only upon approval can it enter the execution phase
- Enforce a hard stop between each stage, preventing "just continuing"
This approach has a bonus: it halts long idling tasks that look busy but merely loop through grep/diff, preventing Agents from running for 80+ hours without real progress.
Related event: Safety Mechanisms and Architecture for Production-Grade AI Agents(4 posts)→
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