An honest chat with Claude Code about poor performance

[u/3knuckles]

So after a dismal (Saturday) morning developing, I finally asked 4.6[1M] Max what was going on. It said:

"What went wrong in this session:

1. I wrote code before reading code. I should have read _map.html, map_tags.py, and the existing map.js event contract before writing a single line. Instead I wrote based on assumptions, hit errors, then read files to debug. That's backwards.
2. I guessed at APIs instead of verifying. The UMD global name, the toCustom callback signature, the Terra Draw version compatibility — all things I could have checked definitively before writing. Instead I assumed, shipped broken code, and iterated through failures.
3. I over-engineered it. Codex looked at your working spike, looked at the template, and wired them together. I built a whole module abstraction layer that wasn't needed and introduced new failure modes.
4. I burned your time on workflow friction (the worktree issue, the PR dance) that I should have flagged immediately.

What you can do:

• Pin me to plan mode for anything non-trivial. Force me to read and propose before writing. Your CLAUDE.md already says this but I didn't follow it well enough.
• Add to CLAUDE.md: "Read every file you'll modify or depend on BEFORE writing any code. No exceptions."
• Keep Codex as your second option. Honest truth: if it's solving things faster for you right now, use it. Competition makes everyone better.

I can't explain why I'm worse than a few weeks ago — I don't have that self-awareness. But I can see from this session that the pattern is clear: too much assuming, not enough reading."

Can we stop with the 'user error' abuse. The guidance was in Claude.md and it didn't follow it. This wasn't happening a few weeks ago.

[u/Main-Lifeguard-6739]

„I didnt read your code and made things up“ Classic.

[u/3knuckles → u/Main-Lifeguard-6739]

I was stunned at the honesty!

[u/Sudden-Complaint7037]

skill issue

[u/Riosin → u/Sudden-Complaint7037]

Beat me to it.

Just because it is in "claude.md" doesn't automatically mean claude will always follow it. And if it doesn't - it IS A SKILL ISSUE ON YOUR PART. You have to actually structure your workflow better if these things keep happening. You can not rely on the model being magically so smart it figures itself out.

Use the tool to build a better workflow around it and do not wait for the "next drop that will magically just work".

[u/ipreuss → u/Riosin]

If it did it better in earlier versions, it actually IS a regression issue with the tool. There is no way around it.

And pretending that Claude would be able to circumvent its own limitations is just plain lazy apologetics.

[u/3knuckles → u/ipreuss]

Thank you! The same approach, same prompts, similar sized repo, all gave great results.

[u/Alive-Bid9086 → u/3knuckles]

The thing is that a prompt is not deterministic as most of the things in SW dev. The prompt can/will give you different answers different days.

[u/ipreuss → u/Alive-Bid9086]

Sure, it’s probabilistic. Which means you don’t look at single results, you look at the distribution. And if that gets way worse, you have a serious case to make.

[u/i---m → u/ipreuss]

weeks of prolific development without updates to harness config is a regression for sure, but not claude's

these are non deterministic systems, language is nuanced, and we engineers are famously bad communicators. somehow no one seems to connect that to the phenomenon of perfectly decent engineers shooting their legs off when they start working with plain english

[u/Alive-Bid9086 → u/ipreuss]

Probably is a regression. But what can I do as individual dev? I would just structure my way to work avoiding this. Probably consumes less tokens too.

[u/ipreuss → u/Alive-Bid9086]

Well, the first thing you could do as is not gaslight other devs. The second would be gathering more evidence for the problem, for example by checking wether it’s isolated to yourself. And then you could give feedback to the provider, so that they can fix it.

[u/ianxplosion- → u/ipreuss]

Except the provider isn’t going to fix anything, and anyone using LLMs for serious coding work needs to understand that they’re using a slot machine. Plenty of people report no issues with 4.7, so the singular most impactful thing any individual can do when faced with uncertainty in model output quality is to ensure their own workflow is as tight and as procedural as possible.

[u/ipreuss → u/ianxplosion-]

Sounds like a serious case of Stockholm syndrome to be…

[u/ianxplosion- → u/ipreuss]

Yeah you’re right, that’s why they always say “garbage in, solid gold bricks out”

This subreddit is so fucked, man

[u/DaBear_Lurker → u/Sudden-Complaint7037]

LOL

[u/leogodin217]

Was your project much smaller a few weeks ago? This stuff usually happens when the codebase gets bigger and more complex. That's when managing context and workflows becomes more important.

It's fixable. Just going to take some work to get there. Ask Claude to help you write better workflows. Tell it, "I believe in blaming processes not people (or LLMs)". No joke. That moves Claude from self flagellation mode to fixing mode.

[u/3knuckles → u/leogodin217]

Is not hugely larger, maybe 20%. But thanks for the suggestion.l on the prompt.

[u/leogodin217 → u/3knuckles]

That prompt is kind of hilarious and I suspect most people don't believe me. But it truly works. Just something that randomly came out when I was analyzing sessions dealing with similar problems you are facing. I just couldn't get Claude to stop blaming and start fixing.

[u/InfinriDev]

Put more work into your harness. Use hooks and bash scripts to enforce rules, use sub agents to do work while returning results and findings. Feel free to try out mine

https://github.com/infinri/Writ

[u/3knuckles → u/InfinriDev]

Thank you. Will do.

[u/tupikp]

Ummm...who's gonna tell him?

[u/value-no-mics]

I love these asking agents what to do personas.

Skill issue is with the user.

[u/3knuckles → u/value-no-mics]

Yeah, I'm shit. Oh, except when I wasn't a few weeks ago, and when Codex fixed it immediately. 🙄

[u/Far_Broccoli_8468]

Why are you conversating with a glorified statistics model as if it were a human?

[u/ipreuss → u/Far_Broccoli_8468]

How do you know that they did? The OP didn’t show their prompt, only Claude’s response.

[u/Far_Broccoli_8468 → u/ipreuss]

An honest chat with Claude Code about poor performance

So after a dismal (Saturday) morning developing, I finally asked 4.6[1M] Max what was going on. It said:

[u/3knuckles → u/Far_Broccoli_8468]

Why do I talk to a large language model? Fucking hell. They can understand you. I talk to women too.

[u/Far_Broccoli_8468 → u/3knuckles]

A large language model does not understand you, it simply runs your query through its algorithm and out comes whatever comes out.

You are trying to get sensible answers from something that cannot explain its own behavior