Yet the dev code behaves exactly how it will in production

It’s guaranteed to work, even though the storage format (jar) is different.

Just because the author's experience is in line with those statements, doesn't mean it's true. I have stumbled upon enough issues with AOT when using some particular libraries that I try to avoid it at all cost and run my apps from source. Apart from that, your code has to be written in a way that's compatible with jars.