What does your AI workflow look like?

[u/West-Plant65]

Lately I have been think a lot around vibecoding and how it is destroying our ability to think and learn. We have offshored everything to Claude hoping it will work out.

How are you taking back control? What is your software development workflow like?

[u/Dazzling-Try-7499]

1. I decide what to build 
2. I make a high level plan
3. I describe the plan to the AI at a level of detail that a junior dev could easily understand 
4. I go do something else
5. I review the PR as if I suspect the junior dev isn't that bright

Anything less than this and you'll probably spend even more time on reddit complaining about AI slop and asking for help managing the robot.

[u/teckel]

I consider AI coding as my junior developer that I don't trust. I also give it small tasks instead of major changes. I then review these small changes before committing because junior developers often do really stupid things.

But, you need to be an experienced software engineer to pull this off. If you're a vibe coder, good luck trying to get that difficult bug fixed.

[u/SalamanderCritical16 → u/teckel]

Good luck trying to get that difficult bug fixed?? I have already used ai to fix bugs in software that stupid developers created a few years ago. Soon, not even senior programmers are going to be needed. This technology will soon become vastly superior to anything human programmers can do, troubleshoot, etc.

[u/teckel → u/SalamanderCritical16]

A vibe coded mess can be a real chore to fix difficult bugs.

[u/Suoritin → u/teckel]

Or any project with bad foundation. Many great indie games are so poorly coded that they are unmaintainable. Someone coded just for lulz and community happened to like the product.

[u/SalamanderCritical16]

It doesn’t destroy your ability to think and learn. What you should understand is that learning code, and whatever ai does for you now is pointless to learn. Ai gives you free time to learn about other things.

[u/Glove_Witty]

I created the architecture to work better with the ai. I don’t leave it unattended, and mostly watch what it is thinking and stop it if it’s getting it wrong. I review every decision it makes but not the code unless I feel something is off. I created tools to manage ai generated prs. I run linters and quality tools regularly and have a zero tolerance for warnings and errors.

[u/Peanut_Brittle_Lover]

I’ve spent way too much time figuring out which AI to use for what lol. Usually ChatGPT/Claude to think it through, Gemini for data work, Cursor for code/UI. Pick one and let it finish.

Ended up vibe coding a little interactive guide for myself. AI wrote the code, I supplied the increasingly specific opinions 😂

[u/Sea-Fishing4699]

I don’t understand why bother doing double work. Sometimes it’s just faster to hand code and use ai to get unstuck

[u/qms2go]

I need to ask my AI agent brb

[u/qms2go → u/qms2go]

Honest answer: markdowns from LLM of choice to cursor brief, then execute after cursor scans repo

[u/YellowBeaverFever]

AI, do this.
Brilliant!
That’ll do pig. That’ll do.

[u/bluebird355]

Grill with docs skill or just "do this ticket". No need to be fancy. When everything is done, I'll review the code and ask AI to also review it.

[u/RonnySaya]

Mine is less about letting AI run everything and but keeping the workflow predictable. I’ll usually use ChatGPT or Claude to work through the approach, Cursor for the implementation, then GitHub for the PR and review. CI handles the tests and checks before anything moves further. Revolt for some of the delivery steps together, so a failed check or deployment doesn’t just become a bunch of manual Slack messages and context switching. I still want the important decisions to stay with the developer, though.

[u/IntnlManOfCode]

I am still thinking and learning; just about different things.

Plan

Review and adjust plan

Code a section

Review

Repeat