Workflow Patterns

Think together before writing code — use plan mode to explore approach and tradeoffs.

Use the agent as a research assistant to understand unfamiliar code before changing anything.

One task per session. Context fills up — fresh starts beat accumulated corrections.

Git stash or commit first, so the agent’s changes are always one git diff away from a clean state.

Open a second session to re-ask the same question without baggage from earlier attempts.

Use isolated workspaces so multiple agents can work on the same repo without stepping on each other.

Deterministic tasks deserve deterministic scripts — not AI improvisation every session.

Script output goes straight into the agent’s context window. Design it to say what happened and what to do next — not just what ran.

Hooks are shell commands that fire automatically at agent lifecycle points — before/after a tool runs, on session start, on finish. Unlike instruction files, they’re deterministic. Enforce your venv rule, run tests after edits, get a desktop notification when the agent is done.