--- title: Everything I Build Around the LLM Becomes a Distraction description: A developer reflects on a year of building workflows around LLM-assisted coding, describing what worked and what didn't. Early confined refactoring tasks... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/everything-i-build-around-the-llm-becomes-a-distraction-wsaiudx1g twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Everything I Build Around the LLM Becomes a Distraction | daily.dev og:description: A developer reflects on a year of building workflows around LLM-assisted coding, describing what worked and what didn't. Early confined refactoring tasks... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/everything-i-build-around-the-llm-becomes-a-distraction-wsaiudx1g og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/wSAiUdX1g.png og:image:alt: Everything I Build Around the LLM Becomes a Distraction og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Everything I Build Around the LLM Becomes a Distraction **[BirkeyCo](https://daily.dev/sources/birkey)** · 9 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A developer reflects on a year of building workflows around LLM-assisted coding, describing what worked and what didn't. Early confined refactoring tasks worked well, but context engineering and automated context compaction turned into endless rabbit holes with diminishing returns. Off-the-shelf coding agents became too complex to fully understand, leading the author to write a custom one. Skills (dynamically loaded, example-based instructions) proved useful, while heavy spec-driven development caused documentation drift. The strongest technique found was starting with a minimal executable prototype (e.g., a single HTML file) before building out the full app. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [How I write software with LLMs](https://daily.dev/posts/how-i-write-software-with-llms-jekylkhup) · Hacker News · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [How to keep enjoying programming in a world of LLMs](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-keep-enjoying-programming-in-a-world-of-llms-dbajtmasp) · Lobsters · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Software Development in 2026](https://daily.dev/posts/software-development-in-2026-q2wl4qawy) · Beam Bloggers Webring · 4 upvotes · 0 comments - [The next hit: How LLMs change the way engineers work](https://daily.dev/posts/the-next-hit-how-llms-change-the-way-engineers-work-y3ba4zyqx) · RUBYLAND · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#context-engineering](https://daily.dev/tags/context-engineering), [#spec-driven-development](https://daily.dev/tags/spec-driven-development) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/everything-i-build-around-the-llm-becomes-a-distraction-wsaiudx1g) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Everything I Build Around the LLM Becomes a Distraction","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/everything-i-build-around-the-llm-becomes-a-distraction-wsaiudx1g","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/everything-i-build-around-the-llm-becomes-a-distraction-wsaiudx1g"},"datePublished":"2026-10-03T19:21:29.245Z","dateModified":"2026-10-03T19:21:44.273Z","description":"A developer reflects on a year of building workflows around LLM-assisted coding, describing what worked and what didn't. 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