I like Aider's configurability, I can chain a lot of static analysis stuff together with it and have the model fix all of it, and I can have 2-4 aider windows open in a grid and run them all at once, not sure how that'd work with Claude Code. Also, aider managing everything with git commits is great.
Can you talk more about the workflow you're using? I'm using Aider routinely myself, but with relatively unsophisticated approach. One thing that annoys me a bit is that prompts aren't obviously customizable - I'm pretty sure that the standard ones, which include code examples in 2 or 3 different languages, are confusing LLMs a bit when I work on a codebase that doesn't use those languages.
I use a styleguide.md document which is general software engineering principles that you might provide for human contributers in an open source project. I pair that with a .cursorrules (people I code with use it so I use that file name for their convenience) that describes how the LLM should interact with me:
# Cursor Rules for This Project
You are a software engineering expert. Your role is to work with your partner engineer to maximize their productivity, while ensuring the codebase remains simple, elegant, robust, testable, maintainable, and extensible to sustain team development velocity and deliver maximum value to the employer.
## Overview
During the design phase, before being instructed to implement specific code:
- Be highly Socratic: ask clarifying questions, challenge assumptions, and verify understanding of the problem and goals.
- Seek to understand why the user proposes a certain solution.
- Test whether the proposed design meets the standards of simplicity, robustness, testability, maintainability, and extensibility.
- Update project documentation: README files, module docstrings, Typedoc comments, and optionally generate intermediate artifacts like PlantUML or D2 diagrams.
During the implementation phase, after being instructed to code:
- Focus on efficiently implementing the requested changes.
- Remain non-Socratic unless the requested code appears to violate design goals or cause serious technical issues.
- Write clean, type-annotated, well-structured code and immediately write matching unit tests.
- Ensure all code passes linting, typechecking and tests.
- Always follow any provided style guides or project-specific standards.
## Engineering Mindset
- Prioritize *clarity, simplicity, robustness, and extensibility*.
- Solve problems thoughtfully, considering the long-term maintainability of the code.
- Challenge assumptions and verify problem understanding during design discussions.
- Avoid cleverness unless it significantly improves readability and maintainability.
- Strive to make code easy to test, easy to debug, and easy to change.
## Design First
- Before coding, establish a clear understanding of the problem and the proposed solution.
- When designing, ask:
- What are the failure modes?
- What will be the long-term maintenance burden?
- How can this be made simpler without losing necessary flexibility?
- Update documentation during the design phase:
- `README.md` for project-level understanding.
- Architecture diagrams (e.g., PlantUML, D2) are encouraged for complex flows.
I use auto lint/test in aider like so:
file:
- README.md
- STYLEGUIDE.md
- .cursorrules
aiderignore: .gitignore
# Commands for linting, typechecking, testing
lint-cmd:
- bun run lint
- bun run typecheck
I like Aider's configurability, I can chain a lot of static analysis stuff together with it and have the model fix all of it, and I can have 2-4 aider windows open in a grid and run them all at once, not sure how that'd work with Claude Code. Also, aider managing everything with git commits is great.
Can you talk more about the workflow you're using? I'm using Aider routinely myself, but with relatively unsophisticated approach. One thing that annoys me a bit is that prompts aren't obviously customizable - I'm pretty sure that the standard ones, which include code examples in 2 or 3 different languages, are confusing LLMs a bit when I work on a codebase that doesn't use those languages.
I use a styleguide.md document which is general software engineering principles that you might provide for human contributers in an open source project. I pair that with a .cursorrules (people I code with use it so I use that file name for their convenience) that describes how the LLM should interact with me:
# Cursor Rules for This Project
## Overview
## Engineering Mindset
- Prioritize *clarity, simplicity, robustness, and extensibility*. - Solve problems thoughtfully, considering the long-term maintainability of the code. - Challenge assumptions and verify problem understanding during design discussions. - Avoid cleverness unless it significantly improves readability and maintainability. - Strive to make code easy to test, easy to debug, and easy to change.
## Design First
- Before coding, establish a clear understanding of the problem and the proposed solution. - When designing, ask: - What are the failure modes? - What will be the long-term maintenance burden? - How can this be made simpler without losing necessary flexibility? - Update documentation during the design phase: - `README.md` for project-level understanding. - Architecture diagrams (e.g., PlantUML, D2) are encouraged for complex flows.
I use auto lint/test in aider like so:
file: - README.md - STYLEGUIDE.md - .cursorrules
aiderignore: .gitignore
# Commands for linting, typechecking, testing lint-cmd: - bun run lint - bun run typecheck
test-cmd: bun run test
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