Thinking models and Cursor are making project size irrelevant as they extract related code from an initial point until they have enough to process. Let me use a metaphor: if projects were houses, when you change the bathroom furniture, you don’t need to know what’s in the bedroom. If you want to know the details (like colors) of bedroom furniture, you’ll just quickly look at it before returning to the main task.
A common issue occurs when the house entrance doesn’t allow furniture of certain sizes to be transported, and you’ve ordered them without considering the entrance dimensions. I solve these types of problems with several approaches:
- A good refactoring prompt that I run periodically to keep the “house in order”
- A good debug prompt to solve 80% of issues
- Prompts to create prompts (PANEL/TOT/COSTAR/DIR) to try different debugging avenues
- Project overview in XML with core components, component names, technology stack, features, subsystems, and links to source files relative paths
In short, as non-developers, you aren’t building the house from the ground up, but the house needs an architect who knows in which direction the house should develop next.