7 AI coding techniques that quietly make you elite

I've long identified as both a programmer and a computer scientist: the programmer who writes code line by line, and the theoretician who plans and strategizes. Time for hands-on coding was scarce while working as an executive, founder, educator, and writer, but since September agentic AI tools such as OpenAI's Codex and Claude Code became a force multiplier.

In that span I built and shipped four major products (WordPress security add-ons), created a working iPhone app for managing 3D printer filament, and am close to a beta of an app for managing sewing patterns. What follows are seven best practices I use to work with AI as a partner and generate production-quality products.

I codified these practices into project files like CLAUDE.MD and AGENTS.MD so they persist across sessions. The first priority is written instructions, because agent behavior can be unreliable when running multiple parallel processes. One core rule: prefer sequential visibility over parallel speed.

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