In Zed I switch the AI panel to ask mode and chat with the agent about different approaches and have it draft patches. Then when I think there's a design worth trying, switch to Write mode and have it implement that change + run the tests and diagnostics to verify the code at least compiles, tests pass and follows our style guides. Finally a line by line review + review of the test coverage (in terms of interface surface area) before submitting a PR for another human review.
After watching a few videos trying to understand how people were using LLMs and getting useful results I found that even making a simpler version of the fancy planning mode in the LLM IDEs via the instructions.md produced hugely better productivity gains.
I started adding an instruction file along the lines of "Always tell me your plan to solve the issue first with short example code, never edit files without explicit confirmation of your plan" at the start and it is like a day and night difference in how useful it becomes. It also starts to feel like programming again where you can read through various files and instead of thinking in your head, you write out your thoughts. You end up getting confirmation or push back on errors that you can clean up.
Reading through a sort of wrong sort of right implementation spread across various files after every prompt just really sucked.
I'm not one shotting massive amounts of files, but I am enjoying the lack of grunt work.
I use Claude Code frequently for doing constrained tasks in the BG while I'm working other issues. I love it's planning mode switch. It is so much better to identity a dead-end before Claude confidently charges off a cliff.
