AI can generate code faster than any human.

It can also confidently generate the wrong code — and keep insisting it's right.

The industry is reacting instead of understanding: hype on one side, rejection on the other.

This site is about neither.

AI can replace reading, thinking, or typing — or some combination. This guide doesn't tell you which to choose. It provides patterns to discuss these tradeoffs intentionally.

It's a pattern catalog for working with AI without surrendering control. Every tool calls these concepts something different — prompts, commands, skills, rules. The patterns underneath are the same.

This guide does not argue that AI "doesn't work," nor that it should be avoided. It documents where it works, where it breaks, and what to do about it.

If you're wondering...

• Why does Copilot keep suggesting the wrong thing?
• How do I get better results from Claude Code or Cursor?
• What's the difference between prompting and context engineering?
• Why does AI output get worse in longer conversations?
• How do I review AI-generated code without missing bugs?
• When should I trust AI suggestions vs write code myself?

...this guide has patterns for that.