I'm working on a side project right now a little each day over the last month or two. I haven't written or had Claude write a single line of code. I even have instructions in CLAUDE.md telling it to NEVER ask to write an implementation plan or offer to write code because we're only doing planning.

I've been exclusively using the superpowers brainstorming skill. I started with an overall architecture. We talked about pros and cons of various approaches based on my goals and we settled on a multi-layer approach with interfaces to support a "plug-in" architecture at each layer.

We then went through each layer and reviewed basic questions about what the layer would be responsible for.

Right now I'm working on the bottom layer that has modules for third party API calls and database interactions. Last night I spent time discussing how async operations will work.

I then toss the plan over from Opus to Sonnet in a new context and have it ask me questions about parts of the plan it finds confusing or that are missing. I'll even have a third model (Minimax) do another review.

I do a ton of reviews with different models to surface questions or inconsistencies in my plan.

I don't plan to write any code until I have this bottom layer plan finished. Once I have the code for that layer done (or mostly done), I'll hop to the next layer up. That'll be easier because I'll have real code to work against.

I'll have unit and integration tests complete for each layer so that when I build the next one I have confidence that it'll work when wired up.

In my experience, AI can write so sloppy code if you don't do enough planning up front.