Building on the earlier suggestion, i totally agree that context management is everything. I had this exact same nightmare on a backend sprint recently and it was driving me up the wall! The breakthrough for me was using a CLAUDE.md file in the project root to define my rules of the road. Basically, I listed out my specific error handling patterns and told it to never, ever generate controllers longer than 50 lines. It was like magic! The agent actually started respecting my architecture. If youre hitting walls with bloated code, you gotta be super aggressive with your instructions in that file. Mentioning your specific Seattle client requirements there too helps keep it from getting generic. I do all my dev on an Apple MacBook Pro M3 Max 128GB RAM and honestly, the performance with Claude Code is amazing when you arent fighting the agent every step of the way. To keep costs down, I use the /compact command constantly. It clears the fluff but keeps the essential context so you arent paying for the same mistakes twice. Another tip... try using the /config command to check your verbosity settings. Sometimes it just needs a nudge to be more concise. Its honestly been a total game changer for my workflow since I stopped babysitting the output and started guiding it with those strict constraints. Youre gonna love how fast it gets once that markdown file is dialed in!

Late to the party but I totally agree with the junior dev sentiment. Over the years I have learned that the best way to optimize backend generation while staying budget-conscious is to strictly limit the context window. If you let the agent roam, you are basically burning money on tokens for code you will end up deleting anyway.

• Always provide a reference file using the @ symbol to point directly at your preferred error handling middleware.
• I find that running on the Anthropic Claude 3.5 Sonnet API gives the most bang for your buck compared to the heavier models.
• Map things out in JetBrains WebStorm 2024.1 IDE first so you arent asking the agent to guess the directory structure. It cuts down the back-and-forth which saves time and cash. If you are on a tight 12-day deadline for that Seattle client, keeping your prompts modular is the only way to stay sane...

> writes these bloated controllers that I have to rewrite anyway. Honestly, Ive had the same issues and its super frustrating when youre on a deadline. I really wanted it to save me time but it just felt like I was babysitting a junior dev who wouldnt listen. Not as good as the hype made it sound, unfortunately. Someone told me you can use the /compact command or something similar to trim down the context so it doesnt get confused by old versions of your files? I think that might help with the bloating problem. Not sure but I also heard you should define your error patterns in a separate text file and point to it explicitly every time. Its not the magic wand I hoped for, but tiny prompts seem to work better than letting it handle the whole schema at once...