I don’t use AI suggestions anymore, I find them distracting.
Instead, I prefer to use an agent in the terminal (Opencode) to do rough sketching for a feature, and fill the gaps myself in a distraction-free environment (Helix).
Of course, I’ll delegate some chore work, but in principle I want to write my own code.
I find that this works best for me, because it avoids the three deadly AI sins:
- Making me lazy. I take pride in my work and don’t want to push sloppy code.
- Causing my skills to atrophy. I don’t want my brain to switch off. The model might have good ideas, but most of the time I have better ones. These come from real-world experience, and that’s what differentiates me from some other AI operator.
- Making me lose the feeling of ownership. This is where teams fail. No one wants to take ownership, stuff falls through cracks, and bad things happen. In contrast, when I write the code, I know exactly why I did it this way, and it’s my responsibility to maintain it.
So this is where I draw the line with AI in my workflow. Things might change, but I get a significant productivity boost without noticeable drawbacks.