Author(s): Eivind Kjosbakken

Originally published on Towards AI.

Learn how to get the most out of Claude Code

Out of the box, Claude Code works pretty well. You can input a series of instructions and have it produce code or other output for you. However, there are a few things you can do to vastly increase the performance of Claude Code, especially when it comes to programming.

The article explains why automated testing is the key bottleneck in getting better results from coding agents and how to implement it effectively: give the agent the right permissions, prompt it to create tests (including integration tests or scripts that must run until successful), and ensure tests execute automatically before commits/merges via hooks or CI (e.g., GitHub Actions). It also emphasizes ongoing test maintenance as code changes, and recommends occasional manual inspection of test inputs/outputs. For cases where humans must be involved, it covers making manual testing more efficient with a visual approach—having the agent generate an HTML checklist/report with tasks, links, and clear expected outcomes—plus outsourcing tedious setup like finding test data.

Read the full blog for free on Medium.

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Published via Towards AI