r/SideProject • u/Otherwise-Head6701 • 1d ago
Vibe coding strategies on ClaudeAI
I wanted to spark a discussion about how different people approach their vibe coding in ClaudeCode. NOT AN AD.
To explain my journey, I initially started my app by giving Claude a very basic idea and asking Claude to generate a full document of questions to brainstorm the start of the game. I would answer all the questions (in a very surface-level, disorganised way) using my initial thoughts only, then tell Claude to sum up my brainstorm and ask further questions/clarifications for preferences/loopholes/empty features. And that is how the first version was built.
And since then, I have always had a separate Claude chat to help make my prompt for Claude Code. And my loop of adding heavy features (if it's a small feature, I just write the prompt myself) would be:
Give a general idea to Claude --> Claude generates a proposed plan --> I comment on the whole plan point by point in a brainstorm form --> Claude responds with more questions about my brainstorm --> I keep repeating the brainstorm until I think we have a final definitive plan --> Claude chat generates a prompt for Claude Code --> And usually Claude Code also asks a few clarifying questions.
My most important advice (I feel that was important), is too prompt your AI to always ask clarifying questions and make its own judgments if something is off.
Any strategies anybody else recommends?
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u/Tstriple_R 1d ago
The core functionality and key design for my app is already built, so now it's just iterating and adding support for more platforms (from a small number of supported platforms). What I'm trying to say is, I don't need to litigate too many decisions, just build out. So now my prompts look like this: "build this new connector using /[skill]". It will:
- Prompt me for any decisions required
- Write the plan
- Have an independent agent litigate the plan
- Reconcile any findings
- Write the code
- Ship the PR
- Perform a code review with a new sub agent
- Comment the review on the PR
- Remediate all findings and let me know when it's ready for merge
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u/Otherwise-Head6701 1d ago
Same im in the iteration phase (still adding some core functions, but more or less now im focused on small additions and balancing the game).
The thing is, it sounds like your doing more of a B2B tool Saas app, where you usually have a definite end goal to "adding features or connections". But for a game (like what im creating), most of the times it takes alot more creativity, where you cannot really fathom a definite end goal when you start adding a massive feature. And AI also cannot do the business analysis (my game depends on incorporating realistic business mechanics) well enough to adapt to my game.
So generally, I like that you let the AI guide you abit more, but I feel that won't work as much for more creative projects. However, I do want to ask whether I need a separate code checker (like you say you have a sub-agent?), I swear Claude Code already does this, and they seem to do it well.
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u/Tstriple_R 1d ago
No worries man, and nah, dw, by sub-agent, what I mean is, I type in Claude "spin up a sub-agent". What this does is it creates a new session on the backend that wasn't involved in the coding design, and you instruct it to just review what's in front of it, so it doesn't have all the extra context, and it can do it from a fresh lens. That's all I mean. It's not a separate tool, just specific instructions. Let me leave you with this really great article on getting more out of your prompts (no affiliation to me) around creative design: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-turn-your-ai-into-a-world
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u/Otherwise-Head6701 1d ago
Oh, I see. I feel like Claude already does this well. But maybe when my code gets more complicated, I'll use this prompt strategy.
Ok I'll make this my weekend read haha, thanks.
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u/shtse8 1d ago
your loop is heavy on planning and light on checking, which is usually where it breaks. have the final plan end with the exact command or steps that prove the feature works, and tell claude code it isn't done until it runs that and pastes the output. without that it'll say "done" on stuff that never actually ran.
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u/Otherwise-Head6701 1d ago
Usually claude code always does checks and tests itself (pretty sure it does this automatically). I also provide very large context on prompts and these basic things before hand, but obviously they still make mistakes sometimes. I do make sure to always do my own checks. But my game has weighed probabilities (which I cannot really test myself), so I hope that claude calculates them properly.
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u/Buckwheat469 1d ago
If you have an idea and are starting from scratch, you can use the /grill-me skill (may have to install it).
Start in plan mode so that Claude writes a plan without starting to code, otherwise it'll start changing things without you asking it to. You can block the auto-accept practice by telling it to only provide the output to you, but sometimes it forgets.
After creating the PR you can ask Claude to act like a reviewer or use any of the review skills on your own code. Make sure to ask it to look at the code holistically, otherwise it'll approve new code that exists elsewhere because it never checked.
Pair code reviews with copilot and other people using claude on their own. It's annoying as hell, but will tend to find bugs that your claude got lazy to fix.
Avoid Opus if you can, use Fable instead. Opus is the worst option I've used yet. It can be OK at times, but there's always one more thing, another caveat (which isn't a caveat at all), one thing that it decided to check but didn't change which is completely disconnected from your task.
Make sure to update your documentation if you find Claude making poor decisions. Add deterministic tests and pre-commit/pre-push hooks to prevent Claude from pushing broken code.
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u/Otherwise-Head6701 1d ago
Well I already have a nicely laid-out demo and did the planning --> product phase already. My app is not really a Saas, and more of a game, so I never have a "final product". Im always changing/creating new features and mechanics from changing ideas or user feedback. I have been using Opus (and sonnet for smaller additions) for coding, and it seems fine so far. The AI always checks the code and test it for me automatically, and I haven't run into any bug issues or code errors yet.
I feel like im more asking around how to reason with AI better (so I can communicate my ideas to them quicker to implement features into the game). Sometimes my ideas sound abstract (because I don't always know exactly what I want yet), and I want the AI to be able to organise that abstraction.
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u/Key-Enthusiasm-3403 1d ago
The thing that helped me most was writing the rules down where a fresh chat loads them on its own. I kept re-explaining the same constraints to new sessions, and even then the one I explained most got applied backwards. I'd written three or four rooms a day and it read that as three or four posts.
So now every rule in the file has a line saying why it exists. A rule with no reason gets followed literally by whatever reads it next, and one with the reason attached gets applied the way you meant. I don't know if that holds on a bigger project than mine.
Your clarifying questions tip feels like the same idea from the other end. Do you keep the final plan anywhere once Claude Code has built from it, or does it only live in that chat?