Start Here
You do not need to pick a forever AI. You need a folder, a project file, and a habit: you approve, the agent implements. Words with a dotted underline can be tapped.
Before you touch a coding agent
Most people fail because they jump into a terminal and ask for “an app.” Do this first.
- Write what you are building in plain English first
- Fill out a project context file before any code
- Test each step before moving on
- Use free chat for planning; save paid agent time for building
- Screenshot errors — don’t just describe them
- Declaring one AI the winner before you have a job for it
- Prompting a coding agent with zero project context
- Trying to build everything in one giant prompt
- Ignoring errors and moving on anyway
- Letting the agent deploy without you looking
Idea to deployed
Follow these in order. The AI is the team. You are still the builder.
Write the idea in one paragraph
Who is it for, what does it do, what does success look like. If you cannot say it, no AI can build it.
Sharpen it in a chat AI — not a coding agent yet
ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, or Gemini in the browser is fine. Ask it to poke holes. You want a smaller first version, not a bigger one.
Fill out the project context file
This file belongs to the project, not to a vendor. Same brain for Grok, Claude, Codex, Cursor. Download it from Project Context.
Install VS Code and open a folder
VS Code is the free app where the project lives. File → Open Folder. That folder is your repo. Full walkthrough: VS Code setup.
Open a terminal and launch one agent
Menu: Terminal → New Terminal (Ctrl+Shift+` on Windows). Then type one of these — not all of them:
grok
codexYou may see “Type copilot to use Copilot CLI.” That is a different agent. Ignore it unless you mean Copilot. In Grok Build on Windows, paste an image with Alt+V, not Ctrl+V. That chord is not universal.
The agent may ask: “Allow access to this folder?” or “Run this command?” That is it asking to see the files in the folder you opened — your working directory. Yes for reading PROJECT.md and the project. No for deploy, delete, or anything you do not understand.
Ask for a plan. Do not write code yet.
Tell the agent: “Read PROJECT.md. Propose a numbered plan. Wait.” If you are on Codex, it may look for AGENTS.md — that is an adapter, not a second project.
Implement one step. Test it.
Open the page in a browser. Try it on your phone. If it is ugly or broken, say so before step two.
When it loops, get a second opinion
Screenshot the error. Paste it into a different AI than the one that wrote the code. Bring the diagnosis back. This is the multi-AI move — not “Claude builds, ChatGPT debugs” as dogma. Use whoever is sharp today.
You approve. Then it continues.
If you do not understand a change, ask “what did you just do?” in plain English. No approval, no next step.
Put it on the internet
Deploy means giving the site a public URL. Firebase Hosting and similar tools do this for static sites. Do not skip Git / GitHub as a backup. See Redundancy & Security.