If you are good at code review, you will be good at using AI agents

1. Give it requirements

2. Tell it to ask me clarifying questions

3. When no more questions, ask it to explain the requirements back to me in a formal PRD

4. I criticize it

5. Tell it to come up with 2 alternative high level designs

6. I pick one and criticize it

7. Tell it to come up with 2 alternative detailed TODO lists

8. I pick one and criticize it

9. Tell it to come up with 2 alternative implementations of one of the TODOs

10. I pick one and criticize it

11. Back to 9

I usually “snapshot” outputs along the way and return to them to reduce useless context.

This is what produces the most decent results for me, which aren’t spectacular but at the very least can be a baseline for my own implementation.

It’s very time consuming and 80% of the time I end up wondering if it would’ve been quicker to just do it all by myself right from the start.

I am falling into a pattern of treating AI coding like a drunk mid-level dev: "I saw those few paragraphs of notes you wrote up on a napkin, and stayed up late Saturday night while drinking and spat out this implementation. you like?"

So I can say to myself, "No, do not like. But the overall gist at least started in the right direction, so I can revise it from here and still be faster than had I done it myself on Monday morning."