The Developer’s Playbook for Turning Hours into Minutes

Welcome to The Developer’s Playbook

This workbook teaches you how to code with AI through patterns. Each pattern shows a specific way to boost your productivity and code quality.

Why Use This Workbook?

AI coding is a skill. Like any skill, it improves with structured practice.

This workbook shows you patterns that actually work.

Coding with AI is a skill. You could spend thousands of hours figuring it out yourself. Or follow this structured path.

Every skill needs structured practice:

  • Sports: You lift weights, even if you’re not a powerlifter
  • Music: You practice scales, even though songs don’t use full scales
  • Coding: You practice patterns like recursion and OOP to write better code

This workbook gives you the patterns for AI coding.

How to Use This Workbook

  1. Read the pattern
  2. Do the exercise on a REAL project you care about
  3. Note what surprised you and what you’d change next time

Share what you build! Tag me on X: @isaac_flath

Your Capstone Project

You’ll build a project throughout this book: PlantAutopsy - a service that helps plant owners understand why their plants died and how to do better next time. It analyzes photos of dead plants and provides a forensic analysis to give plant owners the closure they need.

Start with a messy prototype. End with a polished app for your portfolio. See how all the patterns connect in real development.

The Patterns

Part 1: Foundation

Start here. Build intuition for AI coding.

  1. Vibe Coding - Ship messy prototypes fast
  2. Plan-First Development - Structure before code
  3. Test-Driven Development - Write tests first with AI
  4. Commit-Sized Chunks - Small, testable increments
  5. AI as Architectural Partner - AI challenges assumptions and refines thinking

Part 2: Core Coding

Daily patterns for actual development.

  1. Rush and Refactor - Draft fast, clean up later
  2. Human-in-the-Loop Refactoring - AI suggests, you decide
  3. API Exploration - Learn new APIs through examples
  4. Documentation Generation - Auto-generate docs from code
  5. Code Archaeology - Understand legacy code
  6. AI-Augmented Debugging - Systematic bug fixing
  7. Implementation Analysis - Learn from existing code

Part 3: Quality & Maintenance

Keep your code clean and healthy.

  1. Tech Debt Elimination - Plan and execute debt reduction
  2. Test-After Development - Add tests to existing code
  3. Code Review Assistance - AI spots issues you might miss

Part 4: Mastery & Customization

Tailor AI to your exact needs.

  1. Ruler Context Creation - Style guides that AI follows
  2. Look What I Made - Document your AI-built projects
  3. Socratic Learning - Deep dive into technical concepts
  4. Improving Your AI Coding - Analyze and refine your prompting
  5. MCP Server Creation - Custom tools for your AI agent

What You Need

  • Basic programming skills
  • An AI coding assistant (Claude, Copilot, etc.)
  • Your development environment