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DevMoment

Field notes from shipping with AI

I write this from inside the work — vibe coding sessions, AI IDE rituals, MCP in the wild, and the weekend builds that actually ship.

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  1. AI IDE

    The IDE settings I changed after a year of AI pair programming

    After a year of AI pair programming, I optimize my editor for reviewing, not writing. I format only modified ranges to keep diffs honest, switch to inline diffs, bind word-by-word accept and next-hunk navigation to fast keys, keep a short instructions file in version control, auto-approve only safe local commands, and commit constantly. The settings all follow one shift: I read far more code than I write now.

    Read on /journal/ide-settings-changed-after-year-ai-pair-programming
  2. Weekend build

    I rebuilt my side project in one weekend with an AI app builder

    I take a two-year-old expense-splitter app with a rotting stack and rebuild it from scratch in a single weekend. I scaffold the plumbing fast with an AI app builder, then spend my real hours on the settle-up logic and UX I actually care about. The takeaway: scaffold the boring parts, hand-build the soul, model the data before the UI, and ship the unglamorous last 20% the same weekend.

    Read on /journal/rebuilt-side-project-one-weekend-ai-app-builder
  3. MCP

    Wiring an MCP server to my IDE in 30 minutes

    I wire an MCP server to my IDE's agent in about thirty minutes, and suddenly it reads my real Postgres schema and project files instead of hallucinating. MCP is just a standard way for agents to call external tools. I pick one server that solves a real annoyance, drop a small JSON config with command, args, and env, restart, and let the agent fetch its own context. That's the whole win.

    Read on /journal/wiring-mcp-server-ide-30-minutes
  4. Vibe coding

    Vibe coding with Claude Code: what the third hour looks like

    Hour three of vibe coding is where the magic wears off and the work begins. The agent starts drifting from its own code, re-implementing helpers and calling renamed props. I stay productive by committing at every green moment, re-grounding the context against real files every 30 minutes, narrowing the agent's scope when it wanders, and starting a fresh session when the context gets poisoned. Flow is a tool, not the goal.

    Read on /journal/vibe-coding-claude-code-third-hour