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Bahman Shadmehr Independent AI Systems & Automation Engineer

System patterns

11 guarantees behind reliable AI systems.

Choose what must stay true.

These are design guarantees: properties each pattern is built to keep. They are not a service warranty.

Each guarantee names something that must never fail. Next to it is the pattern that holds it: the decisions, authority, and failure modes behind it. The first six are built into my open-source honeworks packages and marked "Open source"; the others are reference designs, marked as such.

  • A failed score is missing, never zero, and every win can be explained.

    A judge that crashes gives a good candidate a score of 0.

    Gated Best-of-N Selection

    No single judge picks the winner. Open source

  • Agents decide small things and log them; design changes wait for approval.

    The agent keeps asking questions, or stops asking and quietly changes the design.

    Spec-Driven Agent Development

    The agents write the code. I own the decisions. Open source

  • A confident answer never skips required review.

    Confident outputs bypass required review.

    Risk- and Novelty-Aware Model Cascades

    Use the smallest model that knows when to stop. Reference design

Will be published soon

Three more patterns from the same packages, written up next.

  • Will be published soon

    Missing Is Not Zero

    Keep 'could not score', 'could not answer' and 'could not call' as distinct, typed outcomes through a whole pipeline, so failures never turn into numbers that decisions are made on.

  • Will be published soon

    Offline-First Tests for AI Code

    Test model-calling code with public fakes, recorded HTTP and contract checkers by default, and run real-model tests only behind a lock and a marker.

  • Will be published soon

    Plan, Approve, Then Run

    Declare a model or prompt comparison as a file, show its plan and cost, get a person's approval, and run it under recorded conditions so the result is worth trusting.

Not sure which fits?

Let's build something real.

Tell me what must stay true. I will suggest the right pattern.

Let's build something real Email me