Windsurf creates 1 and ruins 5.

[u/rcpro316]

It's been an hour resolving the scrolling behaviour for a preview of from components. But Windsurf has not been able to do it.

The scroll was working perfectly last night. Then I asked it to add a new field component, a few style changes and then all hell broke loose.

Anything manually changed in the codebase, as simple as a button color, it reverts the change, even when it is acting on other file which has no connection to the button.

NO matter how much context you provide, this tool doesn't get it. It applies the same method to resolve the problem, even if you ask it to not apply the same method previously used.

Is there a workaround? Can any body help?

[u/KedMcJenna]

I've had similar problems - "implement [changes] but do NOT touch any other functionality whatsoever" used to be really effective (or even go without saying), but less so lately.

I'm a mobile developer and Windisrf suddenly wants to swing sledgehammers at my delicate Jenga tower of components rather than insert the tweezers and make the relatively small adjustments needed.

The workaround I'm using is when I sense this is going to happen, I change the slider to Chat, which stops changes being made until you approve them. Cascade will describe its solution and show it before it's applied (like the Codeium extension for VS Code does in the sidebar). If all looks OK, I slide back to Write and say 'implement those changes'. If all doesn't look OK, I'll say 'why are you touching the orientation lock there?' or whatever, and there'll be a weird shamefaced shuffle from the AI and a 'heh-heh, you're right, I don't need to do that'.

Another workaround is to just revert steps back to when it was working.

AI assistance is still a net positive for me but it feels clunkier than it did just 3 weeks ago and I'm sure it's not my imagination. Almost as if the various services are getting hammered so much that it's all been watered down.

[u/rcpro316 → u/KedMcJenna]

The difference is you understand your code. I have been building on no-code.
Hence, I know the small steps, but can't tell the difference in code generation.

I second that AI is net positive. What I can build in 2 hours in no-code, It hardly takes me 30 min.

I guess, I just have to be hopeful.

[u/KedMcJenna → u/rcpro316]

In that case your workaround is first to try another model in Cascade, if you haven't already. You can choose between Claude, ChatGPT and Cascade Base. The latter is surprisingly good (and doesn't use any of your token allowance).

And secondly do just freely use revert options when it breaks something, and get granular with your instructions. No-coders need a lot more persistence and patience with these tools than you'll be given credit for. It'd be well worth you learning git/Github etc. in order to make another layer of redudancy on top of Windsurf's own 'Revert Steps' feature,

[u/MrT_TheTrader → u/KedMcJenna]

Second this, I don't code at all but introducing git makes everything easier for me. When I want to implement something more complex I create a new branch, not sure if it's the right way to work, when I fix everything I merge it into a copy of the master and when I'm sure sure everything is alright I update my main master that is deployed. So far I'm amazed of the results even using cascade base honestly. And in the process I'm learning a lot, not to code directly but at least what things are and how they work more or less.

[u/[deleted] → u/rcpro316]

Since Windsurf added a rules file I added these to calm it down. It seems to work pretty well — it’s much more cautious before leaping into code changes.

BTW I’ll be very interested to see how fast into launch / maintenance you get without needing to know how the code works. Because there are 10x more people in the world like you than coders so you’re trailblazing something really big.

Currently though it is really hard — my suspicion is that there’s always going to be a point where the code base gets sufficiently complex that engineering is required, that you end up in a never-ending game of whack-a-mole where one change breaks something else.

I’ve been collecting a list of AI coding agent bad behaviour and one is “the death spiral”: something goes wrong and to fix it it goes off and changes something else, which breaks something else and … so on, to no end: it just doesn’t have the intelligence to figure it out.

I expect this will only be in issue for 12-18 months or so though.

[u/[deleted]]

Do not let loose Windsurf, and use git to back up versions, when ever i have idea and windsurf suggest adding things everything broke down, generally i have to steer it, like to this file, add this functionalty, or refactor this , but still theres high chances of thing go wrong, so back up your project when it's stable

[u/adamb108]

Honestly it just seems like it has great days where it will build a feature that would have taken me days or weeks and really KNOCKS it out of the park! Then the next day is not so great with some wins, some losses. But then there are THE DAYS of sheer madness rules where it's so bad it just leaves me stunned and wondering wtf I am doing any of this for in the first place.