Prompting Is the New Pair Programming

The best mental model I’ve found for working with an agent is one most returning developers already have in their bones: pairing with a junior. A very fast, very literal junior who never gets tired and never gets defensive.

Give it the context you’d give a person

You wouldn’t drop a new hire into a repo and say “fix the bug.” You’d point at the file, describe the expected behavior, and mention the gotcha you already know about. Agents reward exactly the same courtesy.

$ claude "the checkout total is wrong when a coupon and tax
   both apply — it's in lib/cart.ts. tax should apply AFTER
   the coupon. add a test that covers it."

Review like a senior, not a tourist

The trap is letting the speed lull you into rubber-stamping diffs. The half of the job that’s still yours — and always was — is taste and judgment: is this the right abstraction, does this belong here, what breaks at scale. That’s the part the years gave you. Spend them there.