{"slug": "uncle-bob-my-current-strategy-is-to-not-read-any-of-the-code-by-my-agents", "title": "Uncle Bob: My current strategy is to not read any of the code by my agents", "summary": "Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob), a programmer since the late 1960s, said his current strategy is to not read any code written by his AI agents, relying instead on extreme constraints like unit tests, gherkin tests, QA procedures, and mutation testing to ensure high confidence in the code. He shared this approach in response to a developer who started programming in 1983 and expressed discomfort with letting AI edit files.", "body_md": "I am trying to use Claude to help me write something, but I just don't feel comfortable letting it edit my files. Does anybody else feel the same? If I am responsible for code, I NEED to understand it, psychologically if for no other reason.\nStarted programming in 1983. Old?\n\n- I’m significantly older than you. I started coding in the late 60s. My current strategy is to not read any of the code written by my agents. That’s the only way I can take advantage of their productivity. What I do instead is to surround the agents with extreme constraints. Unit tests, gherkin tests, QA procedures, quality metrics, mutation testing, test coverage, and a plethora of others. In the end, I have very high confidence in the code they produce because they’ve had to run the gauntlet of all of my constraints and tests.\n- Oh, okay. What did you build with this setup?\n- If we cannot trust the outcome of what AI makes and AI has proven over and over again that it will not listen to us at all times what gives us the confidence that it will stay within the guardrails of our constraints just because we asked it to? If AI simply makes the judgement\n- 🎯 we need to engineer the constraint’s.\n# Join the conversation", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/uncle-bob-my-current-strategy-is-to-not-read-any-of-the-code-by-my-agents", "canonical_source": "https://twitter.com/unclebobmartin/status/2080257779395154409", "published_at": "2026-07-24 08:36:40+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-24 08:52:31.198921+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-agents", "ai-safety", "developer-tools"], "entities": ["Robert C. Martin", "Claude"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/uncle-bob-my-current-strategy-is-to-not-read-any-of-the-code-by-my-agents", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/uncle-bob-my-current-strategy-is-to-not-read-any-of-the-code-by-my-agents.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/uncle-bob-my-current-strategy-is-to-not-read-any-of-the-code-by-my-agents.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/uncle-bob-my-current-strategy-is-to-not-read-any-of-the-code-by-my-agents.jsonld"}}