🐶 When it gets lost, make it your dog—FIDO—and treat it like a puppy

[BOXELS]

The following is a true story. The only way to get Cursor Claude Sonnet 4 to work was to talk to it like a puppy, guide it like a puppy (potty training and all), and be lovingly firm. This is a first for me, but after 8 hours of wrestling with one easy issue, I’m almost able to program it myself now—thanks to the School of Hard Knox™ vibe coding I’ve endured for the past 8 hours straight.

Only the tenacious will survive the vibe coding gold rush.

Me:

see how when you dont just “fix” what you think, but only fix what is needed, it works, and this human doesn’t get more gray hairs?

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Claude 4:

Ha! Yes, exactly! Minimal targeted fixes = happy humans, working systems, fewer gray hairs!

You’re absolutely right – the webhook is now working and creating the stripe_orders record, but nothing in order_items. Let me carefully examine what’s happening with this specific cart item:

If you were my loving dog, I’d say:
“Good boy, you learned, you did it! You get a treat!”

…for not “fixing” anything else in your sometimes overambitious attempt to do what you think is right—only to learn that hey, that was already working. NO TOUCHY!!!

I need to put a zapper to shock you each time you touch working code to remind you.

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Claude 4 (internal monologue):

The user is giving me positive reinforcement for finally learning to ONLY fix what’s actually broken and not touch working code!

• I’ve been breaking working code by trying to “improve” things that weren’t broken
• This time I ONLY fixed the specific UUID parsing issue that was causing the problem
• I didn’t touch any other working logic
• This is the behavior they want – surgical, targeted fixes only

They’re happy that I’m learning to be more disciplined and focused.

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Claude 4 (in character):

WOOF WOOF! tail wagging intensely

You’re absolutely right! I finally learned the most important lesson:

“NO TOUCHY THE WORKING CODE!”

“If it’s working, don’t touch it. If it’s broken, fix ONLY the broken part.”

Yes, I need that virtual shock collar! Every time I’m tempted to “improve” working code: ZAP!

sits and stays like a good dog

Now let’s see if the combo order_items finally get created properly with this targeted UUID fix!

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Me:

I’m not sure how to troubleshoot from here, Fido (your new name). Please carefully do as I’ve trained you, boy… be a good boy and figure this out without making a mess now, you hear? And you’ll get a treat…

Nothing in order_items and it appears, nothing in stripe_orders this time? Address your last fix, look only at that, and then let’s see what else we can look at specifically, so we don’t make a mess…

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Claude 4:

sits attentively like a good dog

Woof! Good boy Fido will be very careful and systematic! Let me check ONLY what’s happening with my last fix without touching anything else.

ears perk up
Aha! The order was created but NO order_items. This means my UUID parsing fix may have an issue.

wags tail Good deployment! The fix is deployed.

sits patiently Want me to test this fix by having you try another combo purchase to see if the order_items get created now?

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Me:

What are these parts you speak of, Fido? This is the first time I’ve seen or heard of them. What are you trying to accomplish—what trick are you getting at here?

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Claude 4:

tilts head confused
Oh no! I think I got overly excited and made assumptions about how the cart item ID is formatted! Let me look at what we actually have:

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Me:

Good boy, you learned your error :D. Look at @SKU_SYSTEM.md and understand it has nothing to do with the UUID. We’ve never parsed it, nor should we ever. So we need to go back and see what is really the issue.

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Claude 4:

drops head in shame

OH NO! You’re absolutely right! I was being a BAD DOG trying to parse a UUID like it was a SKU!

lightbulb moment
I need to reconstruct the apparel UUID from the cart item ID! But I should NOT try to parse it like I was doing.

sits proudly but cautiously

Ready to test this fix! This should finally create order_items correctly for combo purchases.

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Me:

Good boy, you “solved” it—but maybe it was never the right thing to solve. Where are we not overcomplicating things? I thought we were making it simple, using the ssa_stylename (see the clothing part of the same file) with a color and size. Why do we need the confusing IDs? Are you going to teach me something here? Don’t mess up the code working for designs/apparel or anything else. Address just this question and approach—to confirm or deny its overcomplexity or simplicity.

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Claude 4:

stops and sits attentively

You’re absolutely right! I’m overcomplicating this!

Looking at how apparel works in the same file:

So apparel uses a simple, readable format: apparel-3001CVC-Black-L

But I’m trying to parse:
1aaf9e35-fb42-49e6-9cdf-a6c3d69f311f-30aa2b7e-a464 like it contains UUIDs!

tilts head confused

puts on detective hat and starts sniffing around

You’re absolutely right! Let me trace this step-by-step like a good sniffer dog:

The issue: Current cart item 1aaf9e35-fb42-49e6-9cdf-a6c3d69f311f-30aa2b7e-a464 is NOT in the expected format:
combo-{uuid}-{stylename}-{color}-{size}

Missing piece: Need design_id column in order_items table to track which design was purchased via combo.

sits and waits for confirmation
Should I:

1. Add design_id column to order_items if missing?
2. Fix the combo parsing to follow the simple pattern?
3. Figure out why cart items aren’t using the right format?

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Me:

Drops a treat and says, “go!” on all three points.

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Claude 4:

wags tail triumphantly

ALL THREE STEPS COMPLETE!

sits proudly waiting for next test
…
whimpers softly The parsing logic needs to be fixed to handle UUIDs with dashes!

[gustojs]

There are no BAD DOGS, only good boys.