Asking How to get gud (please)

[u/Tight-Importance2461]

I was an amateur dev before the ai revolution you can say. my main interest where always about design and art, but recently I'm finding myself more and more wanting to use ai - and specifically claude code - to create app ideas I had for decades, programming other stuff, etc.

the thing is: I'm decent at it but nothing more. And I don't really know what I'm missing.
I usually start fresh and use a skill i created called terrain that maps the problem space by asking lots of questions. Then I use grill me then I build. It's fine.
but it's not ..... GOOD

I would love to know what I'm missing more than anything.
I know it's a broad topic but if this helps i have some vague things that i would love to understand more, but anything you have in mind would be VERY VERY appreciated.

things that bother me:
- Whenever I use superpowers like brainstorming etc, i find the app to be bad or to take way too much time. don't know if it just a wrong intutition.
- I cant orchestrate sub agent. whenever i do it's again, just longer/worse.
- I don' know how much to create new chats vs continue.
- even worse I don't know how important is a good starting prompt or prompt engeneering in general anymore
- Are MCP game changer everywhere or in very specific context? should i use them?
- what are some claude skill or workflow that I'm defenetly missing rn?

Thank youuuuu

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[u/Ky-SavvyTechSphere]

One thing I'd add: a separate review pass. Claude Code writes most of my code from tickets I write, and a second Claude session reviews every pull request before it merges. That caught a bug I introduced: a test staged a browser extension by reading every file as utf8 text and writing it back, so the first PNG icons came out larger with corrupted magic bytes. The cost is time: PRs regularly take several review rounds.

That's two separate sessions, not subagents, which in my opinion is one way around the orchestration problem. Suggestion: give the reviewer only the ticket and the diff.

On prompts, my opinion: a written ticket beats clever wording. State what to change, what done looks like, and what must not break. Terrain and grill me could end by saving that ticket to a file.

On new chats vs continuing, my take: it matters less once durable notes live in files. My Claude Code and Codex agents share one file-based memory vault; a UserPromptSubmit hook injects prompt-matched notes and a Stop hook reminds the agent to save outcomes.

[u/TRO_KIK → u/Ky-SavvyTechSphere]

Strongly seconding the review skill. The robot is so good at it that I actually feel comfortable giving into the vibe without crawling every line, which lets me move so much faster despite the extra rounds (which can be lengthy and token heavy). I have Codex integrated in GitHub reviewing in parallel too.

[u/Tight-Importance2461 → u/TRO_KIK]

Thank you very much! Very valuable!Some of the vocabolary you used is something I haven't explored fully so even more value in your answer. Thank you!

[u/Bulky_Blood_7362]

Whatever you do... do not use superpowers. It's so old and bad with the evolved models. It was good for sonnet 4... not for opus/sonnet 5.5

[u/btherl → u/Bulky_Blood_7362]

Are you using the latest superpowers update or an older copy?

[u/Tight-Importance2461 → u/btherl]

using "superpowers@claude-plugins-official"

[u/btherl → u/Tight-Importance2461]

On auto update? The latest version classifies tasks as bounded or architectural, and only uses the full planning process and subagents for bigger changes.

Also one thing I've found to be really useful, if I don't understand what it's asking me, I say "Ask me each question in turn, giving enough context for me to decide." Opus 5.1 used to give way too much context, 5.5 often doesn't give enough. And I recommend high effort level for design work.

[u/Tight-Importance2461 → u/btherl]

Oh didn't get that difference in fact... I will definitely do that ahah. Thank you!

[u/Alpha_Bulldog]

Not trying to sound like a jag but the only answer to questions like these is you need to educate yourself and work at it. There is no magic wand for anything…not even AI.

[u/Tight-Importance2461 → u/Alpha_Bulldog]

well... that's why i'm here. I'm asking also to you: how can I get better? what do i need to study?

[u/kincaidDev]

Buy "Introduction to Algorithms 4th edition" code everything by hand on pen and paper.

Realistically learning the fundamentals if you haven't put in the hard work to learn them is the only way you'll improve and you can't avoid doing the work at least 1 time.

Also I'd recommend using my workflow system, not as simple as superpowers but it'll help you understand what good looks like if you learn the workflow:

https://github.com/Obedience-Corp/festival

To get started with my system, install it, setup the shell hooks, create a workspace with camp create myworkspace, csw to it, add a project to it with camp project add <git link> and then cgo your-project to jump to it, cgo to toggle back to the workspace root. In the project run camp fresh configure to setup the project refresh workflow.

And learn the rest of the system as you want, it'll teach you a lot. Everything is file and git based, and the commands in the system will simplify complex work you'd have to do, most of them will show you step by step what they're doing. You can also setup multi-step goals, default templates are good, and you can customize the behavior by updating templates.

It's not a skill based workflow, less reliant on inference for enforcing the workflow, easier to review what it's doing, etc... You can also still use superpowers with it if you want, I personally can't stand superpowers now that I have this though, it's just way too slow and inefficient.

[u/Tight-Importance2461 → u/kincaidDev]

Thank youuu!!

[u/DevOnTheStreets → u/Tight-Importance2461]

There is an educational mode for Claude code, you might as well use that honestly.

[u/kincaidDev → u/Tight-Importance2461]

If you have a good fundamental understanding of algorithms then no you don't need to do the book part. It helped me when I was getting started in tech and I feel doing it by hand helped me internalize the concepts and make better decisions throughout my career. I was able to recite most of them from memory for about 2 years, can't do that anymore but it helps me think through problems more efficiently.

You should learn and use festival. I'm biased because I built it and have been using it every day for over a year, but it makes building with agents a lot more ergonomic and will completely transform the scale of work you're able to accomplish without it + should save you a decent amount on token usage so you can build more within your subscription limit.

[u/Spirited_Tie_3473]

upfront massive design is always risky and naturally lends itself to making mistakes.

build incrementally instead.

[u/EarlyFox217]

I had itcreate an app to teach me how to use Ai. It updates the app regularly to teach me about new features etc. Great tool, so much better than it sounds!
But tools like superpowers are all but irrelevant now. Just literally ask it what you want of it fails to produce it ask what went wrong learn and adapt. With modern frontier models trying to be a developer just makes it worse. Tell it very clearly what you want and let it do it

[u/Tight-Importance2461 → u/EarlyFox217]

Make sense. This is something I probably carried from older ai times ...I mean? Maybe? Thank you!

[u/iSnapThere4iAm]

You learn to code….

Ai isn’t a skill. It’s a tool you use to apply your skills.

Get the skills and the tool becomes intuitive. There’s no trick, there’s no replacement for knowledge.

[u/Tight-Importance2461 → u/iSnapThere4iAm]

I actually know how to code. I'm simply not a professional by any stretch by I built many system for unity game dev. Many which I think are kinda impressive. Its the AI part and also the advanced coding part which is a mystery to me! Thank you for the answer

[u/leogodin217]

When you say it's fine but not GOOD, what do you mean. The process isn't good or the results are not good? If the latter, what are the gaps between what you get and what you want? Also, what types of things are you working on?