My arc of using AI code generation tools started by steadily adding more and more guardrails. I realized the returns were diminishing while cost, complexity, and latency climbed. Mutation testing made it obvious I had gone too far. While there is a time and place for it, I completely lost the flow and was fighting against my dev setup. I’ve since found a better balance: the most strict, opinionated dev environment, especially on types and linting, with the least code and configuration.