I posted a new paired article set on Ask Good Questions that may be useful to anyone using AI as part of their development workflow.
The guide:
Make the AI Show Its Receipts
https://askgoodquestions.dev/guides/make-the-ai-show-its-receipts
The field note behind it:
The Day the AI Had to Read the Code
https://askgoodquestions.dev/field-notes/the-day-the-ai-had-to-read-the-code
This came out of recent work on PageSnip. We were working inside a larger application structure with a shared shell, defined surfaces, theme rules, and architectural boundaries. The AI kept trying to solve the immediate problem from summaries and assumptions instead of opening the actual files and following the existing pattern.
Once I stopped it and made it inspect the code before patching again, the next pass worked.
The guide is about the practical rule that came out of that:
The AI doesn’t get to change architecture it hasn’t inspected.
That’s especially important with older projects, larger systems, framework layers, or anything where the “right” fix isn’t just whether the code compiles, but whether it belongs where the AI put it.