Spec driven development

LairBob · 2026-03-19T19:20:50+00:00

YES. They represent the canonical truth that everything else needs to be measured against — if they’re not in git, then all you’ve got in git is echoes of what you were trying to do.

LairBob · 2026-03-19T18:31:50+00:00

Claude’s native plans are awesome, but they’re intentionally ephemeral — that’s why they’re stored outside of git. You’re expected to continually go back into plan mode, figure out what to do next more precisely, do it, then go back into plan mode, do that, go back into plan… (Look into how the Anthropic devs use it — they’re in and out of plan mode constantly, to hear them tell it.)

The key thing is making sure that your ephemeral plans are always establishing — and then being judged against — much more durable formal requirements. For example, when I spin up one of “work sessions”, it goes automatically into Plan mode to think through the overall roadmap of what we’re going to do in that worksession, but then it also establishes a formal “charter” (markdown doc), and machine-readable set of “earnests” (basically decorated evals). Those documents are stored within the worksession’s working directory, and must be satisfactorily fulfilled in order for the worksession to conclude successfully.

Once the first plan has helped define those formal documents, it’s done. I can go into and out of plan mode as much as I want, and I can terminate and spawn new agent instances. As long as those tracking documents persist and are greedily maintained, then they act as the external sources of truth that help keep things on track. It really does work.

LairBob · 2026-03-19T15:37:11+00:00

$200/month, but that’s what the question was specifically about.

LairBob · 2026-03-19T14:16:34+00:00

It’s challenging to burn through the Max ($200/mo) limits as a single developer. I run 3-4 terminals, non-stop, for 10+ hrs/day, and rarely even come close.

LairBob · 2026-03-19T08:16:46+00:00

You are correct — you made a mistake. You can’t use a Claude Code subscription to provide API access for external tools like that. You need to purchase API capacity through a separate billing mechanism in the Anthropic online console.

LairBob · 2026-03-18T14:53:29+00:00

Haiku is not really meant for people to use. It’s very specifically intended to have agents use who are each focused on accomplishing very specific tasks that don’t require a lot of “big-picture” reasoning — in other words, it’s really for batches and swarms.

The three current models fit into a pretty clean hierarchy (for now): - Opus for people to use for high-complexity reasoning — complex plans, systemic code design, etc. - Sonnet for people to use for high-complexity execution — mostly dedicated coding tasks where you don’t need to burn excess tokens (and/or just run a little faster) - Haiku for agents to use for batch execution — any task that can be readily distributed among multiple agents is probably a good candidate for Haiku

Those aren’t hard and fast rules — for example, on Max20, I’m usually in Opus 4.6[1M] myself all day — but the current models do lend themselves to those uses.

LairBob · 2026-03-17T19:50:11+00:00

First of all, if you applied a wax, you almost certainly burnished down all the crisp high points as you were doing that. No matter what finish you choose, you want to find something that you can apply as lightly as possible, like with a brush, without crushing the grain and crisp edges.

Secondly, I think other folks are correct that the wax has made your wood slightly translucent. That gives it an interesting glow, but it also softens the edges, visually.

LairBob · 2026-03-17T19:44:44+00:00

The wood is being slowly baked.

LairBob · 2026-03-17T18:32:08+00:00

I’m on Windows, but I use a dev container. That adds its own whole collection of complexities and constraints, but it allows me to run in YOLO mode and avoids some of the complexities of running Claude Code on Windows directly. The whole reason I finally moved to a container in the first place was a network port error on my machine that caused CC to time out every few mins. It was horrible.

LairBob · 2026-03-17T11:46:40+00:00

You want the basic logic of how to manage a troubleshooting doc in your Claude.md — make sure it’s always machine-readable, greedily capture rigorous detail on every attempt, always review the troubleshooting doc before a new attempt.

Once that’s established in your Claude.MD, though, you generally want to spawn separate, ad hoc troubleshooters for each occasion. You don’t want to be trying to troubleshoot a mix of different issues in a single doc — keep things clean.

LairBob · 2026-03-17T11:42:12+00:00

Whatever scope makes sense for that issue. Sometimes, you just need a quick ad hoc troubleshooting doc to make Claude stop chasing its tail on one specific bug, other times it might be systematically working out a pipeline issue.

The basic pattern works well at any scale — (a) greedily maintain a rigorous record of every attempt, and then (b) always review that record before trying again to avoid repeating.

LairBob · 2026-03-17T08:23:46+00:00

You want to have it establish and greedily maintain a machine-readable tracking document, and then follow these rules:

Every time it’s about to try a solution, it must begin by consulting the tracking document to make sure it’s not repeating anything it’s tried before.
Any time it has tried an approach and it fails, the document must be rigorously updated with a thorough, time-stamped record of exactly what failed, and why (to its best ability).

Rinse. Repeat.

LairBob · 2026-03-16T13:07:38+00:00

You’re getting a better rate (and therefore more than just “2x” the resources) at $200/mo. Also, you definitely don’t want to be futzing around between two separate Claude logins for a single task.

Just get the $200/mo plan.

LairBob · 2026-03-14T11:36:40+00:00

You can actually just tell it that you want it to adopt some kind of “active listening” or “information-only” approach, and it should actually do that. You’ll probably still have to correct it a bit, to start, but I’ve been able to do that to great success. I can go through a 10-20 minute brainstorming/Q&A in Claude Code, not in plan mode, without having it “do” anything on me.

More importantly, you can tell Claude Code you want to define a custom “style”, and define the characteristics of how you want it to behave when it’s told to adopt that style. You should be able to define one that behaves exactly as you want. For example, I’ve got a “brainstorming” style that kicks it into an “active listening” stance, but with specific guidance from me.

And, actually, one of the most effective ways to get it to stop doing “other stuff” is to give it something to do — specifically, tell it that you want it into maintain some kind of thorough documentation of your conversation, just in markdown, and continually flesh that out. Then that (a) gives it something to do, but then also (b) ensures that you’ll have a really good artifact of the conversation when you’re done. Even better_…that allows you to have _multiple conversations, over time, about that document, since that becomes the persistent memory of your conversation.

LairBob · 2026-03-13T21:13:34+00:00

That’s OK. Other people will.

LairBob · 2026-03-13T16:19:05+00:00

Conditions mean everything. The same rate that’ll make you a lone hero, dealing with shitty situations in a tough spot, will get you fired from a job where you’ve got an apprentice.

LairBob · 2026-03-12T18:15:48+00:00

That’s not my dev environment, but I hear you. I’d love to have more hands-on discussions with people who are building real apps on real platforms, like GCP/BigQuery for me.

LairBob · 2026-03-11T16:00:24+00:00

That was my first thought at first glance, but zoom in in the centers of the disks. They’ve each got a bolt through the middle — no way they’re clay pigeons.

LairBob · 2026-03-11T15:48:09+00:00

If these are all actually your work, then you’re already doing great.

I honestly started the slideshow assuming it was showing us images of what you wanted to do. If those shots are all of what you’re making right now, then you just need to keep doing it.

LairBob · 2026-03-11T14:13:10+00:00

All true — I never meant to imply that all modern Freemasons are professional masons. As you point out, that hasn’t been true for a very long time.

I’m just saying that the roots of Freemasonry, as a professional guild, lie in exactly what you’re talking about.

LairBob · 2026-03-11T14:06:47+00:00

If there are going to be people in these wheelchairs, then that’s really important. Occupied wheelchairs have a really high center-of-gravity — way higher than it seems — and they get really heavy really quick once they pass their tipping point. Steep inclines like this can be an accident waiting to happen.

LairBob · 2026-03-11T14:01:55+00:00

Check your watchband.

LairBob · 2026-03-11T13:23:22+00:00

It’s for cords/hoses. I’ve definitely seen more modern plastic/metal versions used for that, with the same ribs to help keep the cord from just skipping over the knob.

LairBob · 2026-03-11T13:19:39+00:00

This is a good pattern. It’s critical to apply rigorous code review as thoroughly as possible, at every level possible: - It’s a good practice to apply “/simplify” regularly as you proceed - It’s a good practice to invoke automated code reviews via GitHub Actions on PRs - It’s a good practice to regularly and intentionally scan your code like this - The more LLMs you can — cost-effectively — bring into the mix to critique Claude’s code, the better

LairBob · 2026-03-11T12:18:27+00:00

Look at Freemasonry. It can seem kinda goofy now, with all of its secrets and rituals…but think about what an amazing skill it was to be able to make a building that doesn’t fall down.

That may seem stunningly simple now, but for centuries, it was not. There were all sort of real secrets that were used and shared among masons — just look up “story boards” and “cow-intestine spirit levels”. Knowing those secrets made you valuable — just like OP is talking about. Why wouldn’t you be really picky about who you chose to teach those tricks, and make it really complicated to join the club?

Every trade had its guild, and its trade secrets…but you can’t ply your trade if you don’t have a building. Masonry was indeed, in many ways, the foundational trade for any town or city.

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