Forem: Saim Sheikh

Over-Editing Is a Prompting Problem

Saim Sheikh — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 10:34:20 +0000

AI models that over-edit code have a prompting problem, not an AI problem.

There's a piece getting traction on HN right now about "minimal editing" — the observation that AI coding tools routinely change far more code than the task requires. The comment section is full of engineers nodding along.

We've lived this. Early in building Scarlet, our internal AI dev toolkit, we'd hand an agent a task and get back three refactored files when we asked for one bug fix.

The fix wasn't to limit the AI. It was to get sharper at directing it.

What actually changed:
— Tasks scoped to single responsibilities, not vague objectives
— Explicit constraints in every prompt ("only modify this function", "do not refactor")
— Review steps baked into the agentic loop before any write operation
— Agents that audit their own diffs before committing — not just generate and move on

Over-editing is what happens when you treat AI like a junior dev you throw work at. It isn't that. It's a system you architect.

When we ship a full-stack platform in 15 working days, it's not because agents run loose. It's because scope is tight, review is automatic, and each step in the pipeline knows exactly where its job ends.

Less AI autonomy isn't the answer. Better workflow design is.

Originally posted on LinkedIn — follow us for daily AI engineering tips.

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ROX Ambassador Portal

Saim Sheikh — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 16:20:38 +0000

Campus brand teams are often flying blind.

They know ambassadors are active. They just don't know which ones are actually converting — and paying per head with no data is a bad business model.

Active Media came to us with exactly that problem. Their ROX Ambassador Program had real momentum on campuses, but no infrastructure to track what was working.

We built them a custom conversion tracking platform from the ground up.

The stack:
— Next.js 14 (App Router) for the frontend
— Supabase for auth, database, and real-time updates
— Tailwind for a clean, fast UI that works on any device
— Role-based access so ambassadors only see their own data, admins see everything

Each ambassador gets their own dashboard — referral links, conversion counts, performance over time. The internal team gets a full ops view: which campuses are performing, which ambassadors to double down on, where to pull back.

14 ambassadors onboarded at launch. Platform is live at activemediadashboards.com.

No spreadsheets. No manual tracking. No guessing.

This is exactly what we mean when we say we replace manual ops with software — not theory, actual working systems.

edgeof.tech

Originally posted on LinkedIn — follow us for daily AI engineering tips.

Visit edgeof.tech to learn more.

EdgeOfTech

Saim Sheikh — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 18:36:29 +0000

We built an AI agency that runs on its own AI. Custom platforms, intelligent agents, automation pipelines — we ship real products, not pitch decks. edgeof.tech #AIAgency #BuildInPublic