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How I use Claude Code: Separation of planning and execution

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Re: How I use Claude Code: Separation of planning and execution

#531

Post by pk455 »

aabajian wrote: post #527

I'm going to offer a counterpoint suggestion. You need to watch Claude try to implement small features many times without planning to see where it is likely to fail. It will often do the same mistakes over and over (e.g. trying to SSH without opening a bastion, mangling special characters in bash shell, trying to communicate with a server that self-shuts down after 10 minutes). Once you have a sense for all the repea…

An approach that's worked fairly well is asking Codex to summarize mistakes made in a session use the lessons learned to modify the AGENTS.md file for future agents to avoid similar errors. It also helps to audit the AGENTS.md file every once in a while to clean up/compact instructions

Re: How I use Claude Code: Separation of planning and execution

#532

Post by abustamam »

ryandrake wrote: post #521
abustamam wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take this concept and I meta-prompt it even more. I have a road map (AI generated, of course) for a side project I'm toying around with to experiment with LLM-driven development. I read the road map and I understand and approve it. Then, using some skills I found on skills.sh and slightly modified, my workflow is as such: 1. Brainstorm the next slice It suggests a few items from the road map that should be worked o…

If you want to have some fun, experiment with this: add a step (maybe between 3 and 4): 3.5 Prove Have the LLM demonstrate, through our current documentation and other sources of facts, that the planned action WILL work correctly, without failure. Ask it to enumerate all risks and point out how the plan mitigates each risk. I've seen on several occasions, the LLM backtrack at this step and actually come up with cleve…

That's a good thought experiment!

Re: How I use Claude Code: Separation of planning and execution

#533

Post by abustamam »

skydhash wrote: post #448
abustamam wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What previously would've taken a multi-man team weeks of planning and executing, stand ups, jour fixes, architecture diagrams, etc. can now be done within a single week by myself. This has been my experience. We use Miro at work for diagramming. Lots of visual people on the team, myself included. Using Miro's MCP I draft a solution to a problem and have Miro diagram it. Once we talk it through as a team, I have Cla…

I'm still waiting for the multi-years success stories. Greenfield solutions are always easy (which is why we have frameworks that automate them). But maintaining solutions over years is always the true test of any technologies. It's already telling that nothing has staying power in the LLMs world (other than the chat box). Once the limitations can no longer be hidden by the hype and the true cost is revealed, there's…

That's a good point. My best guess is the companies that have poor AI infrastructure will either collapse or spend a lot of resources on senior engineers to either fix or rewrite. And the ones that have good AI infrastructure will try to vibe code themselves out of whatever holes they dig themselves into, potentially spending more on tokens than head count.

Re: How I use Claude Code: Separation of planning and execution

#534

Post by oblio »

dbbk wrote: post #511
mvkel wrote: post #218

> the workflow I’ve settled into is radically different from what most people do with AI coding tools This looks exactly like what anthropic recommends as the best practice for using Claude Code. Textbook. It also exposes a major downside of this approach: if you don't plan perfectly, you'll have to start over from scratch if anything goes wrong. I've found a much better approach in doing a design -> plan -> execute…

This is actually embarrassing. His "radically different" workflow is... using the built-in Plan mode that they recommend you use? What?

Can you easily version their plans using git?

Re: How I use Claude Code: Separation of planning and execution

#535

Post by NobleLie »

oblio wrote: post #337
dakolli wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wtf, why would you write 100k lines of plan to produce 30k loc.. JUST WRITE THE CODE!!!

That's not (or should not be what's happening). They write a short high level plan (let's say 200 words). The plan asks the agent to write a more detailed implementation plan (written by the LLM, let's say 2000-5000 words). They read this plan and adjust as needed, even sending it to the agent for re-dos. Once the implementation plan is done, they ask the agent to write the actual code changes. Then they review that…

Yep with a human in the loop to process these larger sprawling plan docs (inflated with the intent of the designer iteratively)

Some get deleted from repo others archived, others merged or referenced elsewhere. It's kind of organic.

Re: How I use Claude Code: Separation of planning and execution

#536

Post by QuiEgo »

I find a spend most of my time defining interfaces and putting comments down now (“// this function does x”). Then I tell it “implement function foo, as described in the doc comment” or “implement all functions that are TODO”. It’s pretty good at filling in a skeleton you’ve laid out.

Re: How I use Claude Code: Separation of planning and execution

#537

Post by oblio »

abustamam wrote: post #515
oblio wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This dead internet uncanny (sarcasm?) valley is killing me.

Are you suggesting HN is now mostly bots boosting pro-AI comments? That feels like a stretch. Disagreement with your viewpoint doesn't automatically mean someone is a bot. Let's not import that reflex from Twitter.

> This is a super helpful and productive comment. I look forward to a blog post describing your process in more detail.

The average commenter doesn't write this kind of comment. Usually it's just a "can you expand/elaborate?". Extra politeness is kind of a hallmark of LLMs.

And if you look at the very neat comment it's responding to, there's a chance it's actually the opposite type, an actual human being sarcastic.

I can't tell anymore.

Edit: I've checked the comment history and it's just a regular ole human doing research :-)

Re: How I use Claude Code: Separation of planning and execution

#538

Post by abustamam »

hghbbjh wrote: post #444
Bishonen88 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no doubts that it does for many people. But the time/cost tradeoff is still unquestionable. I know I could create what LLMs do for me in the frontend/backend in most cases as good or better - I know that, because I've done it at work for years. But to create a somewhat complex app with lots of pages/features/apis etc. would take me months if not a year++ since I'd be working on it only on the weekends for a fe…

> but in doing what I don't know as well. Comments like these really help ground what I read online about LLMs. This matches how low performing devs at my work use AI, and their PRs are a net negative on the team. They take on tasks they aren’t equipped to handle and use LLMs to fill the gaps quickly instead of taking time to learn (which LLMs speed up!).

This is good insight, and I think honestly a sign of a poorly managed team (not an attack on you). If devs are submitting poor quality work, with or without LLM, they should be given feedback and let go if it keeps happening. It wastes other devs' time. If there is a knowledge gap, they should be proactive in trying to fill that gap, again with or without AI, not trying to build stuff they don't understand.

In my experience, LLMs are an accelerator; it merely exacerbates what already exists. If the team has poor management or codebase has poor quality code, then LLMs just make it worse. If the team has good management and communication and the codebase is well documented and has solid patterns already (again, with or without llm), then LLMs compound that. It may still take some tweaking to make it better, but less chance of slop.

Re: How I use Claude Code: Separation of planning and execution

#539

Post by abustamam »

oblio wrote: post #537
abustamam wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting HN is now mostly bots boosting pro-AI comments? That feels like a stretch. Disagreement with your viewpoint doesn't automatically mean someone is a bot. Let's not import that reflex from Twitter.

> This is a super helpful and productive comment. I look forward to a blog post describing your process in more detail. The average commenter doesn't write this kind of comment. Usually it's just a "can you expand/elaborate?". Extra politeness is kind of a hallmark of LLMs. And if you look at the very neat comment it's responding to, there's a chance it's actually the opposite type, an actual human being sarcastic. I…

Now I'm just confused. Maybe LLMs really do change how humans communicate.

Re: How I use Claude Code: Separation of planning and execution

#540

Post by dbbk »

oblio wrote: post #534
dbbk wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually embarrassing. His "radically different" workflow is... using the built-in Plan mode that they recommend you use? What?

Can you easily version their plans using git?

"Write plan to the plans folder in the project"
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