Examples of what success looks like, plus references to similar past work, let Claude ship a feature in 20 minutes. The ticket becomes the spec.

I use Claude Code’s plan mode. It explores the codebase, interviews me to clarify the requirements, and lays out a multi-step plan. I just say “implement ticket XX.” Activate it with Shift+Tab in the CLI.

“What should I put in my CLAUDE.md” is the question I hear most from engineers trying to speed up their work.

The common mistake is treating it as documentation for product managers. “We’re explaining what the code does anyway, so we’ll use it as docs.” Wrong.

Give Claude directions for finding the right information.

Bad: “In the class Calculator I export the methods sum and subtract.”

Good: “To do math, look at the Calculator class.”

MCP servers port existing APIs into something agents can use. They also eat your context window with verbose definitions.

Skills are small markdown files with instructions for using CLI tools. They load into context only when your question matches the skill’s description.

I tested reading my reminders list through Claude Code. The Skill used 40 tokens. The MCP server used 749. Multiply that across the dozens of tools a power user touches and Skills scale better.

Some of your MCP servers are a markdown file waiting to happen.

Agents feel natural enough that you start treating them like coworkers. Then you forget they can’t read your nonverbal cues.

Stop saying “this” and “that” to your coding agent. It doesn’t know what you mean. Say “do the research first, then build the website.”

I started in the browser version of Claude, learning what to do and which commands to run. No success.

So I asked it for one thing: “Give me a prompt to ask an AI to do this for me.” I pasted that prompt into Claude Code. Everything worked in two hours.

Mission critical? No. Fun? Yes. Can I watch my movies? Yes.

Claude Code is for anyone with a computer, not just developers.

Here is how I tested 43 files in about an hour.

The agent

An agent is a prompt with its own context window. Each one tackles its assigned task, handles the nuances, and keeps you in the loop.

Test the prompt on a single file first. A QA engineer prompt:

Be a QA Engineer.

Analyze the given file, understand the purpose of the class, and write a unit test in <folder>.

Use a black box strategy: pass inputs, assert outputs. Don’t mock anything without planning it with me first.

Once it works, save it with /agents as “qa-engineer”.

The coordinator

Then create a coordinator that spawns agents in parallel:

Be an AI Agents Coordinator.

Unit test all of these files:

file1.ts file2.ts

Spawn one qa-engineer agent per file. All unit tests go in ./tests/.

Results: 43 files, about an hour, 100 dollars on Opus 4.5.

Each agent has its own 200k token context window. Understand your usage before going wide.