How token economics make code structure a cost, speed, and correctness problem — not just a style one.
If you're a software engineer working with AI coding agents, your job has fundamentally changed. You're no longer the person writing most of the diffs. You're the person designing systems that agents operate through — and how well you design those systems has measurable, compounding consequences.
This isn't an abstract argument about clean code being "nice to have." Token economics turn code structure into a cost, speed, and correctness problem with real numbers attached to it.
The Shift
Before AI agents, structure was a personal habit. Some teams enforced it, most let it slide. The code worked either way.
