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Field Notes from Shipping Real Code with Claude

diwank.space

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Re: Field Notes from Shipping Real Code with Claude

#2

Post by kasey_junk »

One of the exciting things to me about the ai agents is how they push and allow you to build processes that we’ve always known were important but were frequently not prioritized in the face of shipping the system.

You can use how uncomfortable you are with the ai doing something as a signal that you need to invest in systematic verification of that something. As a for instance in the link, the team could build a system for verifying and validating their data migrations. That would move a whole class of changes into the ai relm.

This is usually much easier to quantify and explain externally than nebulous talk about tech debt in that system.

Re: Field Notes from Shipping Real Code with Claude

#4

Post by sdorf »

bitwize wrote: post #3

[flagged]

The whole point seems to be how to get the most out of today's tooling without "glue getting in your pizza". It's a little flag-wavy (probably because of the author's company) but overall seemed like a pretty candid peek into how it's being used. Did you have a specific critique?

Re: Field Notes from Shipping Real Code with Claude

#5

Post by diwank »

Author here: To be honest, I know there are like a bajillion Claude code posts out there these days.

But, there are a few nuggets we figured are worth sharing, like Anchor Comments [1], which have really made a difference:

——

  # CLAUDE.md

  ### Anchor comments

  Add specially formatted comments throughout the codebase, where appropriate, for yourself as inline knowledge that can be easily `grep`ped for.

  - Use `AIDEV-NOTE:`, `AIDEV-TODO:`, or `AIDEV-QUESTION:` as prefix as appropriate.

  - *Important:* Before scanning files, always first try to grep for existing `AIDEV-…`.

  - Update relevant anchors, after finishing any task.

  - Make sure to add relevant anchor comments, whenever a file or piece of code is:

  * too complex, or  
  * very important, or  
  * could have a bug
——

[1]: https://diwank.space/field-notes-from-shipping-real-code-wit...

Re: Field Notes from Shipping Real Code with Claude

#6

Post by diwank »

sdorf wrote: post #4
bitwize wrote: post #3

[flagged]

The whole point seems to be how to get the most out of today's tooling without "glue getting in your pizza". It's a little flag-wavy (probably because of the author's company) but overall seemed like a pretty candid peek into how it's being used. Did you have a specific critique?

Feedback appreciated! Will tone it down; did not intend it to be too much about our company, just that it is the codebase I mostly hack on. :)

Re: Field Notes from Shipping Real Code with Claude

#8

Post by diwank »

meeech wrote: post #7

Honest question: approx what percent of the post was human vs machine written?

I’d say around ~40% me, the ideating, editing, citations, and images are all mine; rest Opus 4 :)

I typically try to also include the original Claude chat’s link in the post but it seems like Claude doesn’t allow sharing chats with deep research used in them.

Update: here’s an older chatgpt conversation while preparing this: https://chatgpt.com/share/6844eaae-07d0-8001-a7f7-e532d63bf8...

Re: Field Notes from Shipping Real Code with Claude

#9

Post by meeech »

diwank wrote: post #5

Author here: To be honest, I know there are like a bajillion Claude code posts out there these days. But, there are a few nuggets we figured are worth sharing, like Anchor Comments [1], which have really made a difference: —— # CLAUDE.md ### Anchor comments Add specially formatted comments throughout the codebase, where appropriate, for yourself as inline knowledge that can be easily `grep`ped for. - Use `AIDEV-NOTE:…

Q: How do you ensure tests are only written by humans? Basically just the honor system?

Re: Field Notes from Shipping Real Code with Claude

#10

Post by diwank »

meeech wrote: post #9
diwank wrote: post #5

Author here: To be honest, I know there are like a bajillion Claude code posts out there these days. But, there are a few nuggets we figured are worth sharing, like Anchor Comments [1], which have really made a difference: —— # CLAUDE.md ### Anchor comments Add specially formatted comments throughout the codebase, where appropriate, for yourself as inline knowledge that can be easily `grep`ped for. - Use `AIDEV-NOTE:…

Q: How do you ensure tests are only written by humans? Basically just the honor system?

You can:

1. Add instructions in CLAUDE.md to not touch tests.

2. Disallow the Edit tool for test directories in the project’s .claude/settings.json file

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