--- title: "What Is AI Code Refactoring? Agentic AI & Safe Code Changes" url: https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-ai-code-refactoring-agentic-ai-safe-code-changes-4n7nd8q4r source_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84XbvASkk4 type: video:youtube source: "IBM Technology" published: 2026-07-06T11:06:44.887Z updated: 2026-07-06T11:07:04.267Z tags: ["cicd", "technical-debt", "agentic-ai"] reading_time: 11 upvotes: 0 comments: 0 language: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # What Is AI Code Refactoring? Agentic AI & Safe Code Changes **[IBM Technology](https://daily.dev/sources/ibmtechnology)** · 11 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary AI code refactoring uses large language models to improve code structure without changing external behavior, targeting issues like poor naming, duplication, and complexity. Two main approaches exist: inline refactoring (small, editor-level suggestions alongside a developer) and agentic refactoring (autonomous, goal-driven changes across an entire codebase). Agentic refactoring works as a loop: planning, reading files, searching for related code, reporting findings, getting human approval, patching, and verifying via tests and builds. Guard rails include human approval checkpoints, rollback snapshots, test/build verification, and optionally deterministic methods like abstract syntax trees instead of probabilistic LLM guesses. The loop can integrate into CI/CD pipelines, and reinforcement learning from accepted/rejected fixes improves suggestions over time. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: --- Tags: [#cicd](https://daily.dev/tags/cicd), [#technical-debt](https://daily.dev/tags/technical-debt), [#agentic-ai](https://daily.dev/tags/agentic-ai) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-ai-code-refactoring-agentic-ai-safe-code-changes-4n7nd8q4r)