tutorials · series · 8 chapters
The deep dive
Eight short chapters covering the rest of the product — why the work lives in files, how much process to use, the gates, the notes it keeps about your code, what it cost, the idea list, working alongside somebody else, and making it yours.
Read them in any order — nothing is locked, and no chapter needs another. Each one asks you questions rather than only telling you things, and some of them are meant to be hard. That difficulty is what makes any of it stick, so it is worth answering before reading on.
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chapter 1 · 6 steps
Why the work lives in files
Your assistant forgets everything between sessions, and you re-explain the project each morning.
Where AIDLC keeps track of a piece of work, why it uses plain files next to your code, and what happens the first time you point it at a codebase that already exists.
chapter 2 · 6 steps
How much process is enough
A one-line fix and a new subsystem get the same amount of ceremony, so you skip the ceremony entirely.
Choosing between five workflows so a one-line fix doesn't get treated like a new subsystem — and why the choice is about the kind of work, not its size.
chapter 3 · 7 steps
The check that says no
"Done" turns out to mean "I stopped working on it", and nobody notices until later.
What a blocked transition looks like, how to read it, and why the review of your own design is written to be hostile on purpose.
chapter 4 · 7 steps
Notes about your code, kept once
Every session re-reads the same files to work out the same things, and you pay for it every time.
How AIDLC records what it learns about your codebase so the next session asks a question instead of re-reading the same files.
chapter 5 · 7 steps
What it cost, and what it really cost
You have no idea what any feature cost, and the ones that felt cheap were not.
How AIDLC works out what a piece of work spent, why the first number is usually too low, and why missing data is reported as missing rather than as zero.
chapter 6 · 7 steps
Ideas that don't evaporate
Good ideas get mentioned once in a conversation and are gone by Thursday.
Capturing a suggestion in one move, the six lines that make it decidable, and the design choice that stops the list rotting.
chapter 7 · 7 steps
Two people, one checkout
Two people work in one checkout and something clobbers something, usually near the end of the day.
What actually collides when two sessions share a folder, why the lock isn't the answer, and the one-flag fix.
chapter 8 · 8 steps
Making it yours
You learn the same lesson twice, and do the same fiddly chore by hand every release.
How a lesson from one job reaches the next one, turning a repeatable chore into a skill instead of a project, keeping the repository healthy, and running the same setup on six different assistants.