This addiction and fear of things-going-bad-if-i-dont-listen-to-the-copilot is precisely why my workflow is a bit more simple and caveman-ish:

1. start a project with vague README (or take an existing one).

2. create makefile with the "prompt" action that looks something like (I might put it in a script to work around tabs etc):

```

prompt:

    for f in `find ./ | grep '*.go *.ts *.files_i_care_about' | grep -v 'files to ignore' | pbcopy`

    do

        echo "// FILE: $f"

        cat $f

    done

3. Run `make prompt` to get a fresh new starting prompt, Go to Gemini (AI Studio) and use the prompt:

```You have the following files. Understand it and we will start building some features.

<Ctrl-v to paste the files copied above> ```

4. It thinks, understands and gives me the "I am ready" line.

5. To build feature X I simply prompt it with:

``` I want to build feature X. Understand it, plan it, and do not regenerate entire files. Just give me unix style diffs. ```

6. Iterate on what i like and dont (including refactors, etc)

7. Copy patches and apply locally

8. Repeat steps 5 - 7.

10. After about 300-400k tokens generated (say over 20-40 features) I snapshot with the prompt:

``` Great now is a great time to checkpoint. Generate a SUMMARY.md on a per folder basis of your understanding of the current state of the project along with a roadmap of next steps. ```

11. I save/update the SUMMARY.md and go to bed. When I come back I repeat from step 2 - and voila the SUMMARY.md generated before are included too.

I have generated about 20M tokens so far at a cost of 0. For me "copy/pasting" diffs is not a big deal. Getting clean code, having a nice custom workflow is more important. I am still ready to relinquish control fully to an agent. I just want a really good code search/auto-complete out of the LLM that adheres to *my* interfaces and constraints.