Our philosophy for coding with AI

We are all learning to adopt AI when building software. Some people claim you can code anything; they say whatever software you need can be built without knowing how to code, and that's it. I think that's wrong for building real products.

Adopting any AI tool isn't a 0-to-100 process; it's more of a spectrum, like adjusting the temperature. How much has to be according to what feels right for what you want.

Think of it like adding salt when cooking: there isn't an exact amount; it's totally up to who's cooking.

At Axiacore, we have been using Codex over Claude Code. We are being cautious of the token spend. It's easy to add more lines of code, and hard to remove them. The incentive of any LLM is to produce as many tokens as possible, if that's their business model.

After many weeks working with those tools, our philosophy can be summarized (not by AI) in five concepts:

Plan. Adjust. Implement.

For any feature, start by writing a plan. You can do it by changing the mode to `/plan` and thinking hard about the feature, making it simple, and avoiding over-engineering. When the plan is written, go back and read it. Find where to simplify, and run the plan again. Adjust until it feels right (two or three times). Then, and only then, implement the code.

Read. Every. Line.

Whatever the output you get from the last step, make sure to read every single line. This is important; the code is meant to be understood by a person, not just by the LLM. It's dangerous to have code that no one knows how it works. Remember: read every single line.

Simplify even more.

After the last step, continue simplifying further. The feature has to fit in your mental model; you are the only one who can make connections and have the whole context, that's the fuel of the "feels right" part.

Fewer lines. More value.

More code doesn't mean better; it's the opposite. Work through the simplest and most elegant implementation you can. This is the part where your genius shines, and you defeat the laziness most people have.

Each line must have purpose.

Finally, be aware that each line has a purpose. Don't be the guy who adds files or code that you don't have any idea what they do. That's just sad. You can do better.