You Don't Pick the Autonomy Level. Your Evidence Does.
· 8 min read
The interesting question in agentic engineering stopped being what do I prompt months ago. These days it's a quieter, more nervous one: how much rope do I hand this thing, and what do I need back before I can walk away from it?
I've been keeping a rough ladder in my head for that — low end, it just suggests and I decide; high end, it runs on its own and only surfaces the decisions that actually need me. It's a useful ladder. It's also been quietly lying to me, and it took a bad week to see how.