The problem: AI outputs are probabilistic, and prompts have a ceiling
LLMs produce probabilistic outputs. No matter how good your prompt is, edge cases will fail — hallucinations, omissions, format drift, and confident-sounding rationalizations that don't hold up.
I noticed this while using Claude Code daily: the AI would say "done" but the file wasn't written. It would claim "logs updated" but the timestamps were three days old. The AI wasn't lying — probabilistic output is inherently unstable.
Pure prompt engineering is fighting probability with probability. The ultimate defense must be deterministic, mechanical checks.
The solution: 4 of 5 steps are scripts. Only 1 requires AI.
