The original title is: "From minimal code to safe code: comparing Ponytail and Guardsman for AI coding agents"

Short summary

The author compares two AI coding-agent tools: Ponytail, which minimizes code output, and Guardsman, which prioritizes safety by detecting repo conventions, assigning risk tiers, and challenging every diff before it ships. Ponytail's minimalism caused a production bug when a five-line webhook handler double-charged a customer due to missing failure-path coverage. Guardsman addresses this by asking 'what happens if this is wrong?' instead of just 'can this be smaller?', proving that blast radius—not code size—is the real measure of risk.

• •Ponytail makes AI agents write minimal code but can produce unsafe code for sensitive paths
• •Guardsman detects repo conventions, assigns risk tiers, and demands failure-path tests before writing code
• •Blast radius, not code size, is the correct risk metric for AI-generated diffs

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.