March 24, 2026The Illustrated Guide on How to Use AI Coding Platforms
AI coding platforms work best when you treat the AI as a junior engineer, not a replacement for your thinking. Break problems into small tasks, plan in Markdown before coding, and keep your context window lean - accuracy drops sharply past 50% capacity. Never debug in the same chat where you built the feature; the AI is biased by its own logic. For existing codebases, reference well-written code as examples. For new projects, define strict guardrails early - without them, the AI makes hundreds of arbitrary decisions that compound into a mess. The blog dives deep into all the patterns that work, the anti-patterns that silently kill your codebase, and strategies for both brownfield and greenfield projects - each illustrated with detailed diagrams. You stay the architect; the AI executes.
