I feel like I’ve figured out a good workflow with AI coding tools now. I use it in “Planning mode” to describe the feature or whatever I am working on and break it down into phases. I iterate on the planning doc until it matches what I want to build.

Then, I ask it to execute each phase from the doc one at a time. I review all the code it writes or sometimes just write it myself. When it is done it updates the plan with what was accomplished and what needs to be done next.

This has worked for me because:

- it forces the planning part to happen before coding. A lot of Claude’s “wtf” moments can be caught in this phase before it write a ton of gobbledygook code that I then have to clean up

- the code is written in small chunks, usually one or two functions at a time. It’s small enough that I can review all the code and understand before I click accept. There’s no blindly accepting junk code.

- the only context is the planning doc. Claude captures everything it needs there, and it’s able to pick right up from a new chat and keep working.

- it helps my distraction-prone brain make plans and keep track of what I was doing. Even without Claude writing any code, this alone is a huge productivity boost for me. It’s like have a magic notebook that keeps track of where I was in my projects so I can pick them up again easily.