WeAreDevelopers Logo WeAreDevelopers
Sign in
For You LIVE
World Congress 2026 Europe • Jul 10, 2026 • Session details

Refactoring in the Age of AI

Dominik Srednicki , Elena Lucarelli

Why do AI assistants create broken pull requests during refactoring? Discover how applying strict technical guardrails makes code changes safe, transforming your role from typist to director.

Pause
Mute Enter Fullscreen
#1 about 3 min

The problem of AI vibe refactoring in large codebases

Generic or hyper-specific prompts cause AI coding assistants to break application dependencies during refactoring.

#2 about 3 min

Why AI struggles with classical refactoring methodologies

Large language models understand classical refactoring steps but fail to maintain the sequence, state, and safety nets required to execute them.

#3 about 3 min

Enforcing hard constraints through AI workflows

Establishing a rigorous workflow limits AI workarounds by analyzing the codebase, matching intents to patterns, and generating a structured execution plan.

#4 about 2 min

Designing the architecture of an AI refactoring pipeline

Static analyzers and a prompt-aware context engine combine to generate step-by-step execution plans analogous to spec-driven development.

#5 about 3 min

Designing project constitutions and structured refactoring checklists

Defining project metadata, phased execution plans, and atomic task checklists ensures AI maintains invariants and test coverage throughout the refactoring loop.

#6 about 4 min

Transitioning from code typists to refactoring workflow directors

Reviewing structured execution plans and checklists replaces manual code diff reviews while integrating up-to-date documentation directly into the repository.

#7 about 4 min

Establishing safety boundaries for AI-assisted code refactoring

Mandatory green tests, bounded blast radiuses, verifiable patterns, and incremental changes are essential prerequisites for allowing automated refactoring.

#8 about 2 min

Improving git blame log traceability with structured guardrails

Visualizing the clarity of git commits produced via strict workflows versus vague AI adjustments demonstrates the necessity of system guardrails.

#9 about 5 min

Audience Q&A on workflow formulation and spec-driven development

Audience questions address the validation of step-by-step checklists, applying automation to feature development, and injecting markdown patterns into contexts without vector search.

Matching moments

1:27 min

Addressing refactoring challenges with AI tools

Daniel Oh Daniel Oh · WWC 2024

1:55 min

Shifting developer workloads and realistic AI productivity gains

Chris Heilmann +2 · LIVE

2:06 min

Rethinking team structures around AI agent capabilities

Mike Mike · WWC 2025

1:19 min

Turning repetitive developer tasks into automated AI agent skills

Markus Eisele Markus Eisele · WWC Europe 2026

3:45 min

Balancing AI tool mandates with developer trust and productivity

Chris Heilmann +2 · LIVE

6:27 min

Using AI copilots to explain and debug legacy codebases

Chris Heilmann +2 · LIVE

More from World Congress 2026 Europe

Building the Nervous System of AI - Michael Kagan (NVIDIA) thumbnail
29:17
about 1 month ago

Building the Nervous System of AI - Michael Kagan (NVIDIA)

Michael Kagan, Sead Ahmetović

Five Things in Tech that Matter Now - WeAreDevelopers World Congress 2026 Closing Keynote thumbnail
19:41
about 1 month ago

Five Things in Tech that Matter Now - WeAreDevelopers World Congress 2026 Closing Keynote

Christian Heilmann

The Sound of Your Secrets: Teaching Your Model to Spy, So You Can Learn to Defend thumbnail
32:06
about 1 month ago

The Sound of Your Secrets: Teaching Your Model to Spy, So You Can Learn to Defend

David vonThenen

Super scaling for the Super Bowl: How to survive 30 million users hitting your backend in 30 minutes thumbnail
35:13
about 1 month ago

Super scaling for the Super Bowl: How to survive 30 million users hitting your backend in 30 minutes

Irina Branovic

Running Secure Life Science Research at Scale using Hybrid GPU HPC and Kubernetes 🧬 thumbnail
24:23
about 1 month ago

Running Secure Life Science Research at Scale using Hybrid GPU HPC and Kubernetes 🧬

Jeremy Murray

Angstfreude - AI and Corporate Culture - The Thrill and the Threat thumbnail
30:26
about 1 month ago

Angstfreude - AI and Corporate Culture - The Thrill and the Threat

Axel Ebert, Karin Krobath

Upcoming sessions on this topic

Open session

World Congress 2026 North America

Beyond Vibe Coding: Using CLI Tools as Your AI Counterpart in Pair Programming

Ron Veen

Java enthusiast and Special agent for Team Rockstars IT

Ron Veen
Open session

World Congress 2026 North America

When Humans Stop Writing Code: Rethinking Languages, Compilers, and Responsibility

Simon Auer

Organizer of flutter vienna meetup and CEO of marqably

Simon Auer
Open session

World Congress 2026 North America

The Broken Rung: How AI is Rebuilding Software Development from the Ground Up

Tomislav Tipurić

Chief Technology Officer, Nephos

Tomislav Tipurić
Open session

World Congress 2026 North America

The spectrum of agentic coding: From vibe coding to high-quality software engineering

YK Sugi

Developer Experience Manager at Eventual

YK Sugi
Open session

World Congress 2026 North America

Reinventing Testing Practices in the AI Era

Eric Deandrea

Java Champion & Senior Principal Software Engineer, IBM

Eric Deandrea
Open session

World Congress 2026 North America

Ship 10x Faster: AI-Powered Development with Claude Code and MCP Tools

Viktoria Semaan

Principal Technical Evangelist at Databricks

Viktoria Semaan

Related videos

Best Practices for AI-Assisted Development of Distributed Systems thumbnail
28:07
WWC Europe 2026 • about 1 month ago

Best Practices for AI-Assisted Development of Distributed Systems

Przemysław Ładyński

Beyond UML: Making Sense of AI-Generated Code through Visual Architecture thumbnail
26:02
Europe 2026 Virtual • about 1 month ago

Beyond UML: Making Sense of AI-Generated Code through Visual Architecture

Sven Reinck

Building the next generation of AI developer tools thumbnail
30:34
WWC Europe 2026 • about 1 month ago

Building the next generation of AI developer tools

Krzysztof Cieślak

Building and Modernising Apps with Agentic AI - Julia Kordick thumbnail
38:01
Coffee With Developers • 5 months ago

Building and Modernising Apps with Agentic AI - Julia Kordick

Julia Kordick

It's Not Vibe Coding If You Know What You're Doing thumbnail
26:43
WWC Europe 2026 • about 1 month ago

It's Not Vibe Coding If You Know What You're Doing

Jeff Blankenburg

AI Killed DevOps... What Now? - Lee Faus thumbnail
57:43
Coffee With Developers • 9 months ago

AI Killed DevOps... What Now? - Lee Faus

Lee Faus

Related articles

From learning to earning

Jobs that call for the skills explored in this talk.