Case Studies
Real stories with real numbers from production AI development
18 PRs in 7 Days
How Claude Code shipped a full engineering sprint
Between February 5-12, 2026, Dark Agent Factory shipped 18 pull requests on the AdaptiveTest platform — using Claude Code as the primary engineering tool with one human engineer reviewing and directing.
The sprint covered: OneRoster security hardening (Fernet encryption, JWT+RBAC, atomic rollback), audit logging and FERPA-compliant data deletion, LTI 1.3 validation for Canvas integration, AI proxy service fixes, billing tier enforcement across 34 endpoints, Sentry error monitoring integration, rate limiting on all 68 API endpoints, and Stripe payment integration with live billing.
Key insight: Level 3 means the engineer directs, the agent builds. Review time < build time.
56% Cost Reduction — Sonnet to Haiku
AI cost optimization without sacrificing quality
The AdaptiveTest AI Question Generator originally used Claude Sonnet for generating assessment questions. Through systematic evaluation — comparing output quality, response time, and cost per call — we migrated to Claude Haiku 4.5.
This wasn't a one-time optimization. Every AI feature we build includes cost analysis as a first-class engineering requirement. We track token usage, compare model performance, and optimize aggressively — because our clients pay real money and deserve efficient systems.
Key insight: AI-native development means treating token costs like compute costs — always optimize.
Solo Founder, Factory Output
One engineer building what used to take a team
Dark Agent Factory was founded by James Williams — a software engineer and architect based in Phoenix, Arizona. There is no team of 10. There is no offshore development shop. There is one engineer with a very good production line.
AdaptiveTest — a production SaaS with adaptive testing, two live AI services, Stripe billing, enterprise integrations, CI/CD, error monitoring, rate limiting, and 660+ automated tests — was built and is maintained by one person using AI agents as the engineering team.
This is the thesis of Dark Agent Factory: the right engineer with the right AI production line can ship what used to require a full engineering team. Not by cutting corners — by building better tools and better processes.
Key insight: The dark factory doesn't need a large team. The agents are the team.
Let's Build Something
We bring the same production line to every project.