This post is the culmination of over a year of research into how to properly use AI agents to write high-quality software in security-critical systems. I will be writing this post primarily from my perspective as a software developer, protocol developer, and maintainer of security-critical software. Over the past year I dove deep into AI agents. I have explored their limits, what they can and cannot be relied upon to do. I’ve created our own AI review tools that perform just as well as multi-billion dollar AI-review systems. I’ve maintained my own custom fork of an AI coding agent called Crush. And this post is my distillation of what I’ve learned to be the best approach if you want to create high-quality software using AI tools. There are some people who hate AI. Indeed, many developers should hate AI , because it is an enemy to their own learning of software development. This post is not for them.…