Stop asking AI to "build your app"

Repo URL Website Version of the Repo I think a lot of people are using AI coding tools in the worst possible order. They start with code. They open a chat, dump a half-formed idea into it, and ask for an MVP. The model happily gives them folders, components, a few routes, maybe even auth if it's feeling ambitious. For about twenty minutes, it looks like progress. Then reality shows up. The app has no real shape. The feature boundaries are fuzzy. The stack choices are accidental. Every follow-up prompt quietly changes the project a little more. By the third or fourth round, you're not building anymore. You're negotiating with a machine that keeps making assumptions on your behalf. I've run into that enough times that I stopped doing it. The workflow I use now is much less exciting, which is probably why it works better. Before I let an agent touch code, I make it go through the same sequence every time: Research the idea Write the MVP requirements Make the technical plan Turn that into