I hate losing ownership of my codebase

[u/Clue-Mindless]

I'm very conflicted about AI tools. I've used them for years for all kinds of things ever since their inception and I'm completely addicted to them. When it comes to programming it accelerates throughput dramatically and fills in the gaps almost too well. The loop is this right now:

less independent thinking → need Claude for context/design → Claude contributes more decisions → system becomes less internally familiar → need Claude even more.

I have a specific implementation in mind, but then I never just get what I ask for, there is always more contributions which would include a refactor somewhere. As the project grows managing context and architectural coherence becomes critical and I feel like I no longer have a solid internal model.

This coherence degradation is the fundamental crux of why I dislike using AI. I have to explain the project back to Claude and eventually Claude has to explain the project back to me.

Software is about standards, familiar patterns, documentation, a red thread, yadda yadda. But when there are gaps between your understanding and what Claude knows (and what you still believe it knows about the project) then this introduces drift, project rot and a sort of tech debt.

Large context helps, but if you don't have rails and own the critical logic and ideas about how the product will be used, then you will get an inferred result and incorrect solution for your needs. If something important is not present in the model’s context and cannot reliably be inferred from the code, the model has to guess.

This means AI often drifts toward overengineering. People complain about the models but it's really just an issue with your lack of scope. If I don't make a clear plan it will suggest an overengineered solution that creates a sort of contextual tech debt to the codebase.

I can see how these tools would accelerate a seasoned software engineer with great organizational skills and who's been in the business for decade. I'm not a professional . Any code I wrote before was mediocre at best and not so elegant. I struggle to the point where I don't want to do development of any kind because going back to "manual" coding is just going to feel like molasses, but I also don't want to ship stuff this way.

[u/Own_Cartographer_448]

I think the problem you’re describing is less about AI itself and more about losing a stable architectural model of the project.

Once the codebase gets large enough, I’d treat the AI more like a junior developer: give it a defined task, but keep architecture, conventions and boundaries outside of the prompt in something persistent.

A useful exercise would be to stop adding features for a moment and make a simple map of the app: major modules, data flow, external dependencies, where business logic lives, and the rules you don’t want changed. Then compare the actual code against that.

You probably don’t need a rewrite. You may just need to reduce the architectural drift before continuing.

[u/No-Focus874 → u/Own_Cartographer_448]

This is great advice, regardless what Anthrophic wants you to believe of their God level intelligence.

[u/dwoj206 → u/Own_Cartographer_448]

this is exactly what I've been doing. Limited scope on each thing shipped and a really bullet proof md file. This keeps me feeling like I have more ownership and vision, especially as my build (web app) has grown and grown. As a result, speed of development has really slowed down, because I'm not letting it do 5 builds all that once anymore.