AI Coding Tips Thread

[mid_gen]

Remembered I get some passes for a free week's Claude Pro. Don't want put the link here as it'll just get scraped, but if anyone wants one drop me a PM. IT does need you to put payment details in I believe so it'll be up to you to cancel.

No kickbacks for me with this btw...

 

[mid_gen]

The little dev house I work at has been tinkering with AI for a while now but yes, we're all copy-pasting back & forth using chat agents - mostly Claude but we'll skip around when we run out of free credits
We're old boys so it's taken a minute for us to cotton on to what coding with AI really means. Boss man is now looking at organising a proper licence for us - likely Claude Code.

Can Claude Code be set up to "see" only the solution you're currently working on? ie could we have a distinct agent PER solution?
We specifically don't want to give it access to our devops repo and don't want it pulling from customer A's code to solve a problem for customer B.

Yes, you open your terminal and navigate to your repository, and run 'claude', it then starts up and that directory is its working directory. You *can* tell it to access stuff outside that working directory, but it'll need explicit permission.

Tis very useful for full stack applications, as it can explore all the different services at the same time to investigate and fix stuff.

I typically have 4 Visual Studio Code instances running, each with a separate Claude Code window, all on different repos. I also have a couple of terminals open, also running Claude, for general stuff.

 

[Mesai]

The little dev house I work at has been tinkering with AI for a while now but yes, we're all copy-pasting back & forth using chat agents - mostly Claude but we'll skip around when we run out of free credits
We're old boys so it's taken a minute for us to cotton on to what coding with AI really means. Boss man is now looking at organising a proper licence for us - likely Claude Code.

Can Claude Code be set up to "see" only the solution you're currently working on? ie could we have a distinct agent PER solution?
We specifically don't want to give it access to our devops repo and don't want it pulling from customer A's code to solve a problem for customer B.

You'd typically open the project in your respective IDE, which scopes the terminal to that parent directory. Running "claude" in the terminal will only give it access to that folder (usually asks for permission/trust on first use). Anything outside of that it'll ask for permission, which you can grant on either a temporary/session level or permanent.

This is how I work but I've also built an MCP server that allows Claude to safely interact with other projects like custom libraries that the current project depends on.

 

[iamgigglz]

Thanks @mid_gen and @Mesai - that's perfect.

 

[On Holiday]

I've been knocking stuff up with Claude in my browser using Opus 4.5/4.6.

Primarily things that just have one python script or html file that I can copy into the server rather than give it any form of direct access / git.

Am I really gimping the performance/efficacy of the code it generates by doing it in the browser as opposed to some terminal/plugin? I'm seeing mixed opinions online.

 

[Mesai]

I've been knocking stuff up with Claude in my browser using Opus 4.5/4.6.

Primarily things that just have one python script or html file that I can copy into the server rather than give it any form of direct access / git.

Am I really gimping the performance/efficacy of the code it generates by doing it in the browser as opposed to some terminal/plugin? I'm seeing mixed opinions online.

For a single script you aren’t going to see much difference, although it is less efficient as it can rewrite entire files instead of doing block edits, but I think that’s been improved.

If the script becomes big enough that it justifies being a project, you’re much better off using an IDE or even just the terminal.

I only ever really use the chat to brainstorm new ideas or do research, but rarely for actual coding.

 

[mid_gen]

I've been knocking stuff up with Claude in my browser using Opus 4.5/4.6.

Primarily things that just have one python script or html file that I can copy into the server rather than give it any form of direct access / git.

Am I really gimping the performance/efficacy of the code it generates by doing it in the browser as opposed to some terminal/plugin? I'm seeing mixed opinions online.

The actual quality of the code it generates won’t be any different.

The benefits are in productivity. The coding agents can do stuff like search files for you, edit any file, they can make new files, create test frameworks., execute tests, run builds, read the build output, automatically fix any errors. They can access APIs directly through cURL and test interfaces.

Basically it does all the driving for you. Let it takes care of all the donkey work.

 

[chrismscotland]

I'm no coder but have been using ChatGPT and CoPilot to some extent for updating and improving some of the scripts and tools I use as a Workplace Engineer (M365/InTune/Azure mainly); but recently started playing around with Claude.
I'm really impressed with what its been able to do in a short time with fairly basic instructions and requirements being able to create a Note-taking app for Android and Windows.

For a long time I've dabbled with Power Platform / MS Power Apps stuff; I don't really see why organisations would go for "no code" when they can use things like Claude Code and get "proper" albeit I'm sure not "clean" code apps.
However like others have said I expect more experienced developers will be able to save loads of time with the automation capabilities of some of these tools.

 

[iamgigglz]

I've been running Claude Code (2.1.59) on a 7 day trial and love it - especially the concept of multiple agents for different parts of the project.
My only complaint is a constant 7% CPU usage, even when idle. It's just enough to keep my laptop fan going at an annoying speed - quite possibly a deal-breaker.

 

[NickK]

There's a few AI threads knocking about now, but thought one just focused on coding tools would be good.

The state of the art is moving so rapidly at the moment, and new tools and tech appearing so fast, it's hard to stay on top. Share your best tips here!

Today I've been configuring a couple of Sub Agents in Claude. One is a miserable C++ programmer like me that is an old school guy that insists on clean, well engineering code, with minimal dependencies. One is a Fintech specific reviewer that ensures certain domain specific stuff is adhered to.

I've added a pre-commit hook to Claude to make sure any changes are run past both these sub agents. Works really well, it now addresses all teh stuff that I was having to nag Claude about before.

Second thing today, I've added the Playwright MCP server, which is a web automation system (that we also use for E2E testing). What this means is that Claude can inspect the debug browser window (web app I'm developing), and instead of guessing it's got things right, it can now capture screenshots and inspect the images, click through the app, and make sure it actually works as expected. Pretty cool stuff.

The fun is solving a real world problem.

I'd configure as a group agents as a team that all peer reviewing, and they focus on the problem domain and that the code solves the problem:
1 is a domain expert analyst - answers domain questions and confirms domain solutions are at least viable
1 is a security expert analyst- ensures that the problem and the proposed solutions are secure (not just the code)
1 operational expert analyst - ensures that the final solution is operationally viable - that includes business continuty, target operational model, operational cost and integration
5 coding sub agents
1 coding standards agent

1 product leader - reviews and approves the suggestions and sequence/timeline to maximise return and ensure both build and operation meet both financial and risk targets.

The pipeline would then have a separate set of analysts that are reviewing the solution and code. It would also have security scanning.

I would also have a cycle of brain storming - new ideas and functionality plus changes to improve the solution (rather than code - you're prompt-to-opcode at this point anyway).

 

[mid_gen]

The fun is solving a real world problem.

I'd configure as a group agents as a team that all peer reviewing, and they focus on the problem domain and that the code solves the problem:
1 is a domain expert analyst - answers domain questions and confirms domain solutions are at least viable
1 is a security expert analyst- ensures that the problem and the proposed solutions are secure (not just the code)
1 operational expert analyst - ensures that the final solution is operationally viable - that includes business continuty, target operational model, operational cost and integration
5 coding sub agents
1 coding standards agent

1 product leader - reviews and approves the suggestions and sequence/timeline to maximise return and ensure both build and operation meet both financial and risk targets.

The pipeline would then have a separate set of analysts that are reviewing the solution and code. It would also have security scanning.

I would also have a cycle of brain storming - new ideas and functionality plus changes to improve the solution (rather than code - you're prompt-to-opcode at this point anyway).

You can do this pretty easily in Claude Code. I just have one custom agent for my Unreal stuff right now (which is prompted to be an Unreal expert and enforce good Unreal patterns, look for performance code smells etc).

Just make the custom agent in Claude, save down to your project config....then add it into your Claude.MD and the orchestrator will take care of it.

You can go much deeper than that obviously, but CC makes these things pretty trivial