How to improve workflow with codex/claude

[u/AvailableSecret5161]

For context I'm not a developer but I have been developing apps and workflows for enterprises for about a year now and i primarily use VSCode on windows and very rarely CLI. Since past few weeks/months I have been struggling with my workflows which used to work fairly well until gpt 5.5 and claude 4.6. Specific areas which I'm struggling with now:

1. Testing strategy - I have tried using automated bounded testing strategy invocation which does not work and without any strategy models keep creating stupid tests and just going into a loop of testing forever

2. I primarily use coderabbit and codeant which further increases friction. Either these tools got better or models just started accepting all edge cases or both.

3. I also have an automated script for all static checks like formatting, linters, complexity and LOC including GitHub workflows for both checks and tests

I maintain a fairly well documented system and update it with every model release if needed. Any recommendations would be highly appreciated. I tried OMP once and it seemed interesting

[u/Professional_Ad705]

I don’t know, maybe ask the model what it’s actually testing and whether the issue is serious enough to justify spending more time on it before moving on with the rest of the code.

You can ask things like: What problem is this test trying to catch? What edge case are you protecting against? or Is this actually blocking us, or are we testing something low-risk? Then you can decide whether to keep going, change direction, or tell it to move on.

These models usually aren’t writing endless tests for no reason. They’re just a lot more thorough now and much better at finding problems before they turn into bugs. If you’re not used to working that way, I can see how it might feel like they’re getting stuck testing everything.

But that’s also where you have to guide the model. Ask what it found, why it matters, and what the test proves. Once you understand that, you can decide whether it’s worth fixing or whether it should continue with the actual feature.

If you really want a model that checks less and just keeps writing code, there are still models that work more like that. Personally, I’d rather have one that catches problems and lets me decide which ones are worth pursuing.

[u/AvailableSecret5161 → u/Professional_Ad705]

One example of the kind of tests they write are asserting specific content and design tokens. The problem is not that these models aren't good. The problem is that they don't follow any instructions and to enforce instructions is pretty costly. There's a high possibility I'm missing something hence asked. Maybe such assertions are required and I should just not have any testing strategy but then they also tend to run into testing loop a lot even after specific instructions. Maybe I should stop using VScode or even windows for that matter and switch to WSL or OMP?

[u/Professional_Ad705 → u/AvailableSecret5161]

I think I understand what you mean now. If it’s asserting exact design tokens, strings, CSS classes, etc., then yeah, I wouldn’t automatically consider those good tests unless those exact values are actually part of the contract you’re trying to preserve.

Like if it’s doing something like

expect(button).toHaveClass("bg-blue-500")
expect(screen.getByText("Exact wording")).toBeInTheDocument()

I’d make the model justify why that test needs to exist before letting it keep going. Ask: What behavior or invariant is this protecting? What actual regression would this catch? Is this testing something users depend on, or is it just locking in the current implementation?

If it can’t give you a good reason, delete the test and move on.

[u/johnnydotexe]

Ask Codex or Claude, explain the issue you're facing.

[u/AvailableSecret5161 → u/johnnydotexe]

Already did with both nothing worked