As I’m digging into my own engine, I’m digging into others.
My Engine
Finally I fixed one of my “What didn’t go well” things. After loads of back and forth and back and forth and test after test, I’m getting my brain engine back on track with some needed ADHD meds. I’ll be revving up a little more slowly than I want due to a little CYA, but still it’s nice to be in the drivers seat again.
AI Engine
On the AI learning front? Two really big lessons have crept up. All about gear shifting. Even though we have all this complicated technology around AI, as it advances, we’re still in that manual transmission like set-up. It’s smart, can do a lot of things, but if you start in 5th gear when you first start the car and try to drive, things could go a little wonky… similar to keeping in 1st down the 401.
Know your gears
This was something that came up when I was learning more about Claude. And after switching back to Gemini I thought I have been, between Pro (low) and Pro (high). But it turns out Gemini Flash is pretty good gear too. Plus it doesn’t eat away at usage as much.
It’s really important to understand what gears you have in you service and when to switch between them. The difference could end up saving you money and thumb twiddling time as you wait for your quota’s to be re-instated.
Skills
When you want to get a job done, you need the right skills. In terms of a team, you want the right combination.
My family got a pass to Science world and we’ve been spending a lot of time in the Artemis Space Exhibit. While my son has been obsessed with all the Lego, my daughter goes to one part, mostly unnoticed, about ensure you have the right skills for the Job. On the moon, the right mix of people mean all the difference. Same goes for your AI needs.
While we think AI is an omnipotent brain that magically knows everything ( which it doesn’t ), it needs context, and guide rails. But not any guide rails and context.
So I read through the antigravity docs and uncovered that most of the services use similar open standards. Where you store these files project by project or service wide might change, but the idea remains the same. Explain the jobs that you want don, in the way you want them done.
In terms of my engine analogy, you may or may not need all 16 gears, and to expect to use all of them all the time is crazy. Skill narrow it down.
So what skills have I set up?
- Product Manager – Of course I have a product manager. It’s something I find very important. When I’m in the planning phase, this one is important as it asks me questions and points of clarity as I make out plans. Plus it generates a PRD and even has some template artifacts I want it to choose from depending on context.
- Systems Architect – This one is a big doc, as there’s a few fundamental thoughts I have around how a system foundation should be. I’ve documents those thoughts to an agent that, when I’m in the planning phase can chime in an have an opinion. It’s fun because I can even watch
- Quality Engineer – “Test Driven Excellence” a specific term I used. I found early on that if you exclude this request, there’s a lot of AI bravado that makes you think it will all work, and it often makes mistakes.
- Debugger – When the Quality Engineer finds a problem, how to you solve it?
- Scaffold Engineer – AI came up with the title. Essentially someone, while we’re doing the work, ensures all files, folder structures and naming conventions are in the right place they are expected. It rigorously compare against industry, framework, or language standards and renames and moves accordingly.
- Librarian – FInally someone who can make sure all the files I want are in the needed places and kept up to date an cross correlated. Session logs and noted and filed.
1st Gear first
So, now that we know gears, and skills. It’s time to turn the key. You start in 3rd gear right?
- Make a plan – engage your architect, product manager & library to set up the project, define scope and context, and estimate a general course of action.
- Question Everything about your PRD ( aka Plan ) – you’re going to need to do some thinking and reading. Don’t just say “looks good”. Read it, question things you don’t understand about it. Get clarity on some of it’s decisions. Sometimes I even like to ask it, why it chose to do things, even when I agree.
- Stop. And Walk Away and have your Library Keep up and document the planning session.
- Then, and only then, start with the first recommended session. And Sure, you can speed through sessions, but this is a marathon, isn’t it. You want your car to last. And for me, keep my budget in check.
