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My impression is that AI coding is on a "pick two of three" triangle: scope, ship speed, and correctness. Small tools are (speed + correctness) fast prototypes are (speed + scope) and big projects are (scope + correctness). Every project that tries to be all three degrades to "fast prototype."

Yeah basically. We've been able to pick up more ambitious scopes and more aggressive correctness, but have not gained on pace at all

I think it's a variety of factors. Agentic coding already incentivizes greater investment in testing rigor because it helps the agent write correct code and it gives you assurance against its mistakes. Pair that with greater scope or more ambitious projects, and now you have another reason for rigor

Another thing is, in some ways, the scope & ambition around testing itself has grown. Simtests & synthetic environments, mocks, and code coverage has become equally more attainable, so now we do it way more than before

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It's all pace until you've built something valuable, then it's all harness engineering. Early on the agents flew. Now paying users sit on that database, so the week goes on deploy gates whose counters can only hold or fall, a hook that blocks destructive SQL, and features born kill-switch off.