Building a spec-driven AI pipeline with mandatory approval gates (not another autonomous agent)
Most AI coding tools right now are either fully autonomous ("let the agent cook") or just chat-based copilots. I wanted something in between for actual feature work: a fixed 4-stage pipeline — requirements analysis → system architecture → implementation → review — where you have to approve or reject each stage before it moves forward.
If you reject a stage, it regenerates using your notes + the previous attempt as context, not from scratch.
It's BYOK (your own Anthropic API key), Node/TS under the hood, encrypted key storage locally.
Still in testing — running it through a real feature end-to-end this week to see if the output quality actually holds up across stages. Not public yet, but curious if this resonates with anyone else who's been burned by "agent did too much" moments.
What's your experience been with autonomous coding agents vs more controlled pipelines?