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Cole Medin
The Best AI Coding Setup Isn't the Most Autonomous One (Here's Why)
⏱ 21 min video · 3 min read3 Jul 2026Worth watching
TL;DR
Cole Medin breaks down Dan Shapiro's five-level framework for AI coding autonomy — from basic autocomplete to fully autonomous 'dark factory' pipelines — and argues that Level 3 (delegating all coding to an agent while staying in the loop for planning and validation) is the current sweet spot for most developers and teams. He also explains what a robust AI coding system actually looks like and what it genuinely takes to reach full autonomy.
Key points
1
The five levels of AI coding autonomy map directly to driving automation: Level 0 (spicy autocomplete) through Level 5 (dark factory with no human control).
2
Level 3 is the recommended target: you delegate all coding to the agent but sandwich implementation with structured planning and validation — like a Waymo with a safety driver.
3
The 'dark factory' (Level 5) ships code straight to production from a spec with no human in the loop; it is powerful but requires enormous engineering effort and carries serious reliability risks.
4
A proper AI coding system requires building an 'AI layer' of rules, sub-agents, and skills on top of your coding agent, plus a repeatable workflow loop: Research, Plan, Implement, Validate (R-PIV).
5
System evolution is critical: every mistake your agent makes is an opportunity to improve the AI layer so the same error is less likely to recur, gradually building the trust needed to move to higher autonomy levels.
Actionable insights
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Start at Level 3: delegate all code writing to your agent but stay actively involved in planning (grilling the agent with questions, removing assumptions) and validation (unit tests, end-to-end tests, spot checks).
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Build your AI layer before chasing autonomy — define your conventions as rules, package workflows as skills, and use sub-agents to manage context; without this harness, moving to Level 4+ will tank reliability.
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Treat every agent mistake as a system improvement opportunity: instead of just patching the bug, update the relevant rule or workflow in your AI layer so the root cause is addressed systematically.
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Do not rush to the dark factory — only move to Level 4 or 5 after you have built genuine trust through repeated successful R-PIV loops and can honestly say your agent will nail a task without heavy iteration.
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For dark factory implementation, keep code generation and code review in separate context windows to avoid bias, and use deterministic (non-LLM) steps wherever reasoning is not actually needed to improve reliability.
Notable quotes
“I myself haven't written a single line of code for over a year now, which is crazy to think because I've spent years and years of my life writing code every single day.”
“If your business can get to the point where you have a process where you can send in a spec and get out shipped code, that my friend is the dream.”
“It's not even just like get the system to a point where it's reliable. It's get to the point where it's reliable and then you have to build the next layer on top of it.”
Worth watching?
✅
Worth watching the full video?
Worth watching if you want the visual diagrams of the five-level framework and the R-PIV workflow loop — the key mental models and action steps are all captured here, so skip the video if you are pressed for time.
Saved you some time? The creator still deserves a like.
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