Story

I'm trying to figure out the right and effective way to use Claude Code. So far, my experience hasn't matched what many in the community seem to rave about.

Often, it either generates convoluted implementations when simpler ones clearly exist, or it produces code that's riddled with bugs — despite confidently claiming it's correct. I'm wondering if I'm just not using it properly.

Here's my current workflow:

- I first talk to Gemini to gradually clarify and refine my requirements and design.

- I ask Gemini to summarize everything. Then I review and revise that summary.

- I paste the final version into Claude Code, use plan mode, and ask it to generate an implementation plan.

- I review the plan, make adjustments, and then let Claude Code execute it.

- Long wait…

- Review Claude’s output and clean up the mess.

For refactors and bugfixes, I usually write some tests in advance. But for new features, I often don’t.

It often feels like opening a loot box — 50% of the time it does a decent job, the other 50% is pretty bad. I really want to understand how to use it properly to achieve the kind of magical experience people describe.

Also, I’m on the Pro plan, and I rarely hit the rate limit — mainly because there’s a lot of prep work and post-processing I need to do manually. I’m curious about those who do hit rate limits quickly: are you running lots of tasks in parallel? Machines can easily parallelize, sure — but I don’t know how to make myself work in parallel like that.