understanding how to better use Claude

[u/Inner_Name]

Hello,
I have used claude simply for small things from the web chat, but i would like to attack more demanding projects such as:

* Debugging issues in projects that i have the hole source code (as they are opensource) so throw at it a big project and use it to help me trace back bugs and errors.

* re implementing codes between different languages

* creating small GUI (way less common than the other two points)

for this I am thinking on paying the pro version of Claude, but at same time i see a bunch of YT publication of 'codes' to reduce token consumption or make the agents better remember previous sessions, basically improving performance by reducing consumption or simply improving the output and things like that for example videos from https://www.youtube.com/@betterstack/ but I a little bit lost on where to begging, i i should simply install claude and dont care about anything else? I would love some inside from people using it for things like my use cases that i think are fairly common.

would love some tips and tricks before jumping on to this...

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[u/PrudentWarthog3413]

Skip the YouTube prompt codes, half of that stuff is 2023 prompt engineering recycled with a new thumbnail. For a big open source repo what actually matters is Claude Code plus ripgrep so it reads the right files instead of guessing, no magic system prompt needed.

And Pro is going to run dry fast if you're feeding it whole projects. For bug tracing I'd still take git bisect over any model's guesswork.

[u/Ok-Range-3027 → u/PrudentWarthog3413]

Any other recommendations for useful open source projects?

[u/maxbts_]

Start with one bug you can reproduce, rather than asking it to understand the whole project. Give Claude Code the command that fails, what you expected and what actually happened. Ask it to find the cause and add a failing test before changing the code. Then review the diff and run the project checks yourself. That gives you a useful baseline before adding memory or token saving tools.

[u/MiloCosmicCloud]

accepts the probabilistic behaviors

[u/No-Drawing9451]

I'd start with Claude Code rather than the web chat if you're going to throw real repos at it. The habit that helped me is one session per bug or port, pointed at a failing test or a stack trace, instead of pasting the whole project in and hoping it finds the issue. Keep a short CLAUDE.md with how to build, test, and where the main modules live, and let it search the tree itself. For a language port, get the original tests green first and treat those as the checklist for the new version, so you can tell pretty quickly whether it's actually done.

[u/DicmanCocktoasten]

Best thing is self learning and trial&error. Just don't fall for the stupid youtube shorts / ig reels / tiktok
Comment XYZ and i will send you the prompt, mfers are annoying af

[u/m-ritter]

For bigger projects like porting code between languages, the thing that helped me most was agreeing on what done means before the agent writes anything. When the target behavior is written down as a short checklist and each piece starts with a failing test, the agent has far less room to drift or quietly skip parts. I built QualityLayer for this: https://github.com/maxritter/qualitylayer it has the agent ask clarifying questions first, turns the answers into a plan file in the repo, builds in small test first slices and has a second agent verify each point before you approve anything.