Developer experience
Making day-to-day development faster and calmer, from onboarding and environments to agent workflows.
44 posts · page 1 of 2
Spec-Driven Development With Claude Code: Write the Spec, Then Let the Agent Build
Spec-driven development means agreeing on a written specification before an AI agent writes code. What a good spec contains, a practical workflow with Claude Code (spec → plan → tasks → implement → verify), templates, and when it's overkill.
Git Rebase vs Merge: What's the Difference and When to Use Each
Merge and rebase both bring changes from one branch into another, but they shape history differently. How each works, fast-forward and squash merges, interactive rebase, the golden rule of rebasing, resolving conflicts during a rebase, and a sensible team policy.
Database Seeding Explained: Test Data That Makes Development Easier
Seeding fills your database with starter data so the app is usable the moment you run it. What seed data is, the difference between reference data and sample data, how to write an idempotent seed script, using Faker, and how to keep seeds away from production.
Codespaces vs Coder vs Ona: Cloud Development Environments Compared (2026)
An honest comparison of the main cloud development environments in 2026 — GitHub Codespaces, Coder, Ona (formerly Gitpod) and DevPod-style tools — by who runs them, pricing model, environment definition, persistence, and what each is actually for.
Getting AI to Write Tests That Actually Catch Bugs
Ask an AI for tests and you'll get plenty: tests that mock everything, assert nothing useful, and pass no matter what the code does. How to get tests that fail when behaviour breaks — what to test, how to prompt, how to check a test is real, and how tests become the agent's safety net.
How to Write Good Commit Messages (and Why It Matters With AI)
'fix', 'update', and 'wip' tell you nothing six months later. What a commit message is for, the simple format most teams use, examples of good and bad messages, how often to commit when an AI tool is making the changes, and how to get Claude Code to write useful ones.
How to Write a README for Your Project
The README is the front page of your project — for collaborators, clients, future you, and AI tools that read it for context. What to include, a template you can copy, how it differs from a CLAUDE.md, and the mistakes that make READMEs useless.
What Is a Dev Container? devcontainer.json Explained
A dev container defines your development environment as code — the tools, versions, services, and settings a project needs — so it runs the same on every machine and in the cloud. What goes in devcontainer.json, how it differs from a Dockerfile, and where it falls short.
VS Code for Beginners: The Setup and Shortcuts That Matter
Visual Studio Code is the most popular code editor, and the one most AI tools integrate with. How to open a project, find your way around, use the built-in terminal and search, the handful of extensions and shortcuts worth learning, and how it fits alongside Claude Code.
How to Undo Almost Anything in Git (Including an AI Agent's Mess)
An agent committed to the wrong branch, rewrote files you needed, or ran a reset it shouldn't have. Git can almost always get your work back. Which undo command fits which situation — restore, revert, reset, and the reflog that rescues 'deleted' commits — explained with the exact commands.
Why TypeScript Makes AI-Generated Code Safer
Types turn a whole class of AI mistakes — invented properties, wrong arguments, forgotten null checks — into errors caught before the code runs. How TypeScript acts as a feedback loop for agents, the settings that matter, and the escape hatches AI uses to switch it off.
A tmux Cheat Sheet for Long-Running Sessions (and AI Agents)
tmux keeps terminal sessions running after you disconnect — which is exactly what you want for a build, a dev server, or an AI agent working on a remote machine. The twenty commands that cover almost everything, a small config that makes it pleasant, and the habits for running agents inside it.
The Terminal for Complete Beginners: 15 Commands You'll Actually Use
The black window with blinking text isn't as scary as it looks. What the terminal is, why AI coding tools use it, and the fifteen commands that cover almost everything a beginner needs — plus the few that deserve respect.
Technical Debt in AI-Built Apps: What It Is and When to Pay It Down
AI tools let you build fast, and some of that speed is borrowed. What technical debt is, the specific kinds AI-generated code accumulates — duplication, dead code, inconsistent patterns, no tests — how to tell when it's hurting, and a practical way to pay it down without a rewrite.
Structured Logging: Logs You Can Actually Search
console.log('user saved') is useless at 3am when you need every request user 4812 made in the last hour. How structured logs work, what fields to include, request IDs that tie a request together, log levels that mean something, what never to log, and how logs make AI agents better debuggers.
Semantic Versioning Explained: What 2.4.1 Actually Means
Version numbers like 2.4.1 follow a convention: major.minor.patch. What each number promises, what ^ and ~ mean in package.json, why '0.x' versions are different, how lock files fit in, and how to version your own app or library.
How to Review a Pull Request Written by an AI Agent
AI-written pull requests are tidy, confident, and plausible — which makes them harder to review, not easier. The failure modes that differ from human code, the order to read a PR in, and a checklist that catches what skimming misses.
How to Resume a Claude Code Session (and What Resuming Can't Bring Back)
claude --continue and claude --resume reopen yesterday's conversation in seconds. But a resumed session restores the conversation, not the world it was working in. The commands, the habits that make resuming reliable, and the gap between conversation state and environment state.
Designing a REST API That Won't Embarrass You Later
APIs are hard to change once clients depend on them. The conventions that keep a REST API predictable — resource naming, methods, status codes, errors, pagination, validation, idempotency, and versioning — with the specific mistakes AI-generated APIs tend to make.
Why Does My App Look Broken on My Phone? Responsive Design Basics
It looks perfect on your laptop and falls apart on a phone: text too small, buttons off the edge, a page that scrolls sideways. What responsive design is, the five most common causes of broken mobile layouts, how to test properly, and what to ask your AI tool.
Refactoring AI-Generated Code: Cleaning Up Without Breaking Things
Refactoring improves code's structure without changing what it does. When to refactor an AI-built app, how to do it safely with tests and small steps, the most valuable clean-ups, and prompts that stop the AI from rewriting everything.
Preview Environments for Every Branch: How They Work and What They Cost
A preview environment gives every branch or pull request its own live URL, so changes are reviewed running rather than read as diffs. How they work, the hard part (databases), the ways to get one, and why they matter more when an AI agent is writing the code.
Running Claude Code Agents in Parallel With Git Worktrees
Two agents in one checkout will overwrite each other's work. Git worktrees give each Claude Code session its own files and branch on the same repository. How to set it up, and the parts nobody warns you about: ports, databases, and dependencies.
How to Get a New Developer Productive on Day One
The first week of a new developer's job is often spent installing things and fighting a setup guide that stopped being true a year ago. What a day-one-ready project looks like — a reproducible environment, seed data, a short honest README — and how to test it without hiring anyone.