Workflow is this: - I have emacs open for code editing/reviews/git. - Separate terminal emulator with 1-3 claudes - I work on a story by splitting it into small steps ("Let's move this email logic to the email.service.ts", "here's the fields I'd need to add to the request, create a schema validation in a separate file, and update the router and controller") - I mostly watch claude, and occasionally walk through the code in emacs whenever I feel like I want to review code. - I handle external tools like git or db migrations myself not letting LLMs near them.

In essence, this is pretty much how you'd run a group of juniors - you'd sit on slack and jira diving up work and doing code reviews.

I use it like having a bunch of L3/L4 engineers. I give them a description of the changes I want to be made, sometimes chat a bit with it to help them design the features and then tell them to have a go at it. Then I create PRs and review them and have them clean up/improve the code and merge it. I try to balance giving it enough stuff to build so I can switch to another agent, and not giving them too much so that they make a weird assumption and run really far with it.

I got really good at reviewing code efficiently from my time at Google and others, which helps a lot. I'm sure my personal career experience influences a lot how I'm using it.

FWIW, I use Codex CLI, but I assume my flow would be the same with Claude Code.

One thing I really like it for is if you have a lot of something similar - let's say plugins. I can then just go to the plugins directory, and tell claude something as simple as "this is the plugins directory where plugins live. I want to add one called 'sample' that samples records". Note that I don't even have to tell it what that means usually.

It will read the existing plugins, understand the code style/structure/how they integrate, then create a plugin called "sample" AND code that is usually what you wanted without telling it specifically, and write 10 tests for it.

In those cases it's magic. In large codebases, asking it to add something into existing code or modify a behavior I've found it to be...less useful at.

iterm and talk to Claude, command+tab to vscode fix/adjust things, command+tab back to iterm and talk more to Claude. Not the most technically advanced setup but it works pretty well for me. I don't like the turbo auto-complete in vscode, it's very distracting. If i want an agent's help I tab over and ask claude.

Also, use the Superpowers plugin for Claude. That really helps for larger tasks but it can over do it hah. It's amusing to watch the code reviewer, implementor, and tester fight and go back and forth over something that doesn't even really matter.

I'll take a crack at it. I liked using Cursor and it was my first introduction but my main editor is Emacs and I like Emacs, it has a bunch of configuration that has built up like barnacles on the bottom of a ship so it was kind of hard using VS Code. I use a project package (projectile) that allows me to quickly move between different projects (git repos, TRAMP sessions, anything really) and I can open a CC terminal there that I can have pop in and out as I need it. Really it's pretty similar to how I used Cursor.

I think it depends an awful lot on what you work on. We obviously couldn't give Claude Code any sort of access in the real world in the European energy sector, but even in my personal projects set up to test it. It has not been very good at working with software for IoT devices. It does well with a lot of web projects, but simply using something with batteries included like Django removes 90% of what it might do.

You should try to set it up like junior developers with small tasks for them to do, like people suggest here. Do pay attention to your over all project though. I've had some where the codebase turned out to be an absolute mess, even though each PR I'd gone through a long the way seemed great at the time. Not that this wouldn't happen with humans.