Stories from the Factory Floor: Building a software factory on our scariest code
Blog post from LaunchDarkly
LaunchDarkly engineers embarked on a project to modernize their most complex and business-critical frontend codebase using AI-driven software factory patterns, challenging the ideal of a fully autonomous "dark factory." Initially, the plan was to rewrite 66,000 lines of React code within six weeks, but the reality proved more complex, requiring human oversight to effectively manage the process. The team discovered that while agents can handle scale, human intervention is crucial for steering and improving outcomes, leading them to break the project into manageable phases. Leveraging feature flags and controlled automation, they safely integrated new code, ensuring zero disruption to customers while maintaining functional and visual parity. The experience underscored the importance of human judgment in AI-driven development and highlighted the potential for ambitious projects to be tackled by small teams with the right infrastructure. By focusing on the most challenging parts of their codebase, LaunchDarkly demonstrated the viability and benefits of a balanced AI software factory approach.
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