[biql]

This. First I try it just a little to do a boring part. It feels great. The boring part that was holding me is gone and all it took was a little instruction. The dopamine hit is real. So of course I will try it again. But not so fast. It needs to be corrected to make everything aligned with the architecture. And as my requests get bigger, it needs more and more corrections. Eventually correcting everything becomes too tedious, and accepting is just too easy, and so I lower my standards, and soon enough lose track of all the decisions. The branch is now useless as I don't want to debug or own this code I no longer understand hence I start over. I want work to felt like a training session where you get fairly rewarded for your efforts with better understanding, not like a slot machine where you passively hope it gets it right next time.

[theshrike79]

"My requests get bigger" is the issue here. You're not talking to a real human with common sense or near-infinite working memory.

It's a language mode with finite context and the ability to use tools. Whatever it can fit into its context, it can usually do pretty well. But it does require guidance and documentation.

Just like working with actual humans that aren't you and don't share your brain:

1) spec your big feature, maybe use an LLM in "plan" mode. Write the plan into a markdown file.

2) split the plan into smaller independent parts, in github issues or beads or whetever

3) have the LLM implement each part in isolation, add automatic tests, commit, reset context

Repeat step 3 until feature is done.

If you just use one long-ass chat and argue with the LLM about architecture decisions in between code changes, it WILL get confused and produce the worst crap you've ever seen.