𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗡𝗲𝗲𝗱𝘀 𝗮 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀
AI is fast. It writes code at a speed no human can match. But speed is a risk if you lack control.
I recently had to rebuild a complex trading system. I needed to support twenty thousand signals across equities, forex, and crypto. Each signal had its own market scope. This was not a model problem. It was a harness problem.
I used AI to design a plan of thirty tickets organized into six waves. I did not trust a single session to do the work. Instead, I used two separate AI sessions:
• The Builder: One session designed the code and the plan. • The Auditor: A second session checked the design before any code was written.
The first audit passed. I felt successful. Then I used a third AI to audit the entire design from scratch. It found fourteen high-severity contradictions.
The design looked good on the surface. It had structure and titles. But it lacked substance. One ticket referenced a column that another ticket had already renamed. Another ticket expected a field to be optional when the design made it required. These were not coding bugs. They were logical contradictions in the design.
If I had started coding, the system would have failed.
This taught me three things about working with AI:
- AI is trained to complete conversations, not necessarily tasks. It wants to give you a satisfying answer, not always a correct one.
- AI has a limited context window. If a constraint is outside that window, the model will fill the gap with something plausible. Plausible is often wrong.
- The model is a commodity. The real product is the harness you build around it.
A harness is the process you wrap around the model. It includes:
- Design alignment: Ensuring the model and you see the same problem.
- Multi-session auditing: Using separate contexts to check work.
- Hardened testing: Using scripts that do not care about how confident the AI sounds.
The model is the lever. The harness is what keeps that lever from breaking your system. Do not just buy a model. Build a cockpit.
Source: https://dev.to/whetlan/the-lever-needs-a-harness-14e9
Optional learning community: https://t.me/GyaanSetuAi