Eliminating Waste in the AI Augmented SDLC

When AI can use the same tools you use - Jira, GitHub, Sentry - the bottleneck in software development shifts from writing code to everything around the code. I applied lean manufacturing principles (Toyota Production System) to my own AI-augmented workflow and systematically removed entire categories of waste: manual ticket management, error triage, deployment monitoring, and ambiguous specifications that lead to expensive rework. I’ll walk through the specific patterns - MCP tool handoff, Gherkin specs as agent contracts, pre-flight checklists derived from PR review audits - and show how each elimination is permanent and reveals the next layer.