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

My process is basically

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 have a similar, though not as detailed, process. I do the same as you up to the PRD, then give it the PRD and tell it the high level architecture, and ask it to implement components how I want them.

It's still time-consuming, and it probably would be faster for me to do it myself, but I can't be bothered manually writing lines of code any more. I maybe should switch to writing code with the LLM function by function, though.

That's like a chef saying they can't be bothered to cook...