More review is not always more safety

Agentic development can easily turn into a slow sequence: build, review, revise, review again, merge, then begin the next thing. Every step is defensible, and the total process can still be inefficient.

The better question is which work can be checked independently, which review actually changes risk, and which dependencies prevent parallel progress.

Safety should come from clear gates around consequential changes, not from making every small change wait for the entire system. Reversible local work can move quickly. A change that affects other people or a production system deserves a stronger boundary.

Review has value when it is attached to risk. Everywhere else it can become ceremony.