Do you give AI agents whole features or break them into single file edits?

Agent drift is so annoying. you approve a clear outline and halfway through it rewrites a file it shouldn't even be looking at or claims a task is finished when it missed half the steps.

I started locking down access and only letting it handle small task pieces one by one instead of broad plans.

Does keeping tasks super small stop the code jumping, or do you still have to babysit every edit?