4 ms·

I don’t get this tbh, I use Claude too and my issue is the opposite - too many small breaks. Every time I hit enter my brain wants to checkout because the agent

I don’t get this tbh, I use Claude too and my issue is the opposite - too many small breaks. Every time I hit enter my brain wants to checkout because the agent just spins while it creates thousands of tokens and churns on the subject. Even if it’s only 2m, that’s 2m where my mind has nothing to work on. Hard to stay in flow and engaged. Feels weirdly similar to being interrupted over slack.

androiddrew 8mo ago
I have never been in a flow state with an agent running. I use agents, but that isn’t flow.
- diavelguru 8mo ago
  and flow state is a luxury in 2026 with AI swarm most likely to be found sparingly if all. Good luck all!
- diavelguru 8mo ago
  yes agreed. I'm running 3-5 parallel Claude at once with requirements as the input. My prompt is say work on section 5.1 or something very specific. Then I'm monitoring the work across all instances.
diavelguru 8mo ago
you are correct flow is not achieved as this is not programming more like system design, architecture, QA, Product Owner work. It's using the swarm as your own dev team.
- LoganDark 8mo ago
  But it's also programming as you have to study outputs to ensure they're correct. Some (it seems many) don't do this, and then their outputs usually aren't correct.
  - haliskerbas 8mo ago
    That’s what my teammates are for, I pipe slack and jira to Claude and the asker and teammates tell me if there’s a bug
  - DrewADesign 8mo ago
    Sounds more like code-level QA to me.
    - LoganDark 8mo ago
      In my experience, QA is something like ensuring it responds correctly to input. This is similar, but not the same as code review. I would more liken QA to dynamic review rather than static. Note though that code review can still be a form of QA. (Formal proofing especially.)
      - DrewADesign 8mo ago
        That’s what QA departments in software companies do. In many other contexts they examine things produced by machines to ensure they meet the specs and functional requirements for that piece, and if not, either adjust it, have someone else adjust it, or have the adjusted machine spit out another one. They might design tests, fixtures to measure things, etc etc etc but they do not make the things directly.
        LoganDark 8mo ago
        To be fair, ensuring that machines produce the correct outputs (even by making someone else fix it) is still the kind of process I'm talking about. After all, that's also how it works in software.
        DrewADesign 8mo ago
        It depends on what the machines are supposed to do. I’ve never worked in software QA, but worked as a developer for over a decade and currently work in manufacturing. Is mass-manufacturing totally different? Sure. QA engineers in small high-complexity single-run prototyping shops? It’s not much different.
- phil21 8mo ago
  > It's using the swarm as your own dev team. reply Managing high performance dev/ops teams is it's own form of a state of flow. In fact for me, it's much more addicting than any other as the outcomes are usually many multiples of any IC role you could have. Even crazier when you have a "follow the sun" team involved so there the work just gets sequentially handed off and is always in constant motion. I imagine AI coding is like this for a lot of folks.
deleted 8mo ago
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MattGaiser 8mo ago
Are you a single agent user? At least in my case, flow is gone. It’s all context switching now.
- bluefirebrand 8mo ago
  Sounds like a recipe for burnout
arjie 8mo ago
I have similar problem but I have to switch contexts and it makes the work a lot more intense.
amelius 8mo ago
This. And another problem is that I feel not proud after completing the task. No sense of achievement.
andai 8mo ago
I fix this by manually prompting many small changes (with a very fast model — smaller models are fine for simple changes / additions, and you can iterate fast). So I can still work way faster than programming manually, but I stay in flow. And most importantly, my mental model stays synced the whole time. There's no catching up to do.

androiddrew 8mo ago

I have never been in a flow state with an agent running. I use agents, but that isn’t flow.

diavelguru 8mo ago
and flow state is a luxury in 2026 with AI swarm most likely to be found sparingly if all. Good luck all!
diavelguru 8mo ago
yes agreed. I'm running 3-5 parallel Claude at once with requirements as the input. My prompt is say work on section 5.1 or something very specific. Then I'm monitoring the work across all instances.

diavelguru 8mo ago

you are correct flow is not achieved as this is not programming more like system design, architecture, QA, Product Owner work. It's using the swarm as your own dev team.

LoganDark 8mo ago
But it's also programming as you have to study outputs to ensure they're correct. Some (it seems many) don't do this, and then their outputs usually aren't correct.
- haliskerbas 8mo ago
  That’s what my teammates are for, I pipe slack and jira to Claude and the asker and teammates tell me if there’s a bug
- DrewADesign 8mo ago
  Sounds more like code-level QA to me.
  - LoganDark 8mo ago
    In my experience, QA is something like ensuring it responds correctly to input. This is similar, but not the same as code review. I would more liken QA to dynamic review rather than static. Note though that code review can still be a form of QA. (Formal proofing especially.)
    - DrewADesign 8mo ago
      That’s what QA departments in software companies do. In many other contexts they examine things produced by machines to ensure they meet the specs and functional requirements for that piece, and if not, either adjust it, have someone else adjust it, or have the adjusted machine spit out another one. They might design tests, fixtures to measure things, etc etc etc but they do not make the things directly.
      - LoganDark 8mo ago
        To be fair, ensuring that machines produce the correct outputs (even by making someone else fix it) is still the kind of process I'm talking about. After all, that's also how it works in software.
        DrewADesign 8mo ago
        It depends on what the machines are supposed to do. I’ve never worked in software QA, but worked as a developer for over a decade and currently work in manufacturing. Is mass-manufacturing totally different? Sure. QA engineers in small high-complexity single-run prototyping shops? It’s not much different.
phil21 8mo ago
> It's using the swarm as your own dev team. reply Managing high performance dev/ops teams is it's own form of a state of flow. In fact for me, it's much more addicting than any other as the outcomes are usually many multiples of any IC role you could have. Even crazier when you have a "follow the sun" team involved so there the work just gets sequentially handed off and is always in constant motion. I imagine AI coding is like this for a lot of folks.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

MattGaiser 8mo ago

Are you a single agent user? At least in my case, flow is gone. It’s all context switching now.

bluefirebrand 8mo ago
Sounds like a recipe for burnout

arjie 8mo ago

I have similar problem but I have to switch contexts and it makes the work a lot more intense.

amelius 8mo ago

This. And another problem is that I feel not proud after completing the task. No sense of achievement.

andai 8mo ago

I fix this by manually prompting many small changes (with a very fast model — smaller models are fine for simple changes / additions, and you can iterate fast). So I can still work way faster than programming manually, but I stay in flow. And most importantly, my mental model stays synced the whole time. There's no catching up to do.