It definitely does the thing ✓

After getting Claude set up, I spent some time exploring how it handled an unfamiliar codebase. I asked it to read through things and explain what it thought was going on. Mostly calibration. I wanted to see how it reasoned, not how fast it answered.

Once that felt solid enough, I gave it a real feature to think about.

I put it into planning mode and asked it to pull a Jira ticket by ID and outline an implementation. Nothing exotic. Just a normal piece of work.

It didn’t start with tests. I had to correct that. After the nudge, it adjusted and stayed there.

The first pass was functionally correct.

It identified the database changes, drafted an Ecto schema for a new table, outlined schema tests, sketched a helper for a third-party API, and mapped out controller code and routes to connect everything.

That alone was useful.

There’s still setup work on my side. Coding preferences. Style constraints. A clearer plan → build → test loop so it doesn’t drift as much.

But as an initial attempt, it required less intervention than I expected.

Definitely enough to make me double down and take this seriously.