I am getting error while prompting.

I’ve laid down on my couch during my intense 6am to 9:30am coding session and it feels wrong

Just confirming for everyone getting error messages: Claude is currently inaccessible for many users worldwide. The issue is a massive, widespread service degradation at Cloudflare. Status: Cloudflare has acknowledged the issue and is investigating/implementing fixes.

yes claude is down, api errors, nice halloween spook claude.

Just a quick question inside the community. Does the Claude code server is down? Because I'm not getting any response there. Maybe the server is being overloaded. I don't know. Maybe you can help me out. Is it only me or you are also getting the same error?

⎿ API Error: 500 {"type":"error","error":{"type":"api_error","message":"Overloaded"},"request_id":null}

Keep getting Unexpected Capacity Constraits error. Is claude down? Have been getting this for 10 messages in a row. Thanks

Is Claude’s server down? I’m getting a 500 error when creating a new chat or visiting the site. Is anyone else experiencing the same?

There seems to be no update on status page yet - https://status.claude.com/

EDIT: it is back up

I was about this close to rage-quitting Claude Code last week.

Everything felt off, duplicated files, broken context, janky UI output, and weird hallucinated `.prod.production.main.final.final` files that made me feel like I was in code purgatory. Tried "resetting" my chats, renaming files, even whispering sweet nothings to `CLAUDE.md`. Nothing worked.

And THEN.. I did something weird.

I stopped coding and just documented everything first.

Like, really dumb-detailed stuff:

- what each file is for
- how each function connects
- tiny README blurbs inside folders
- checklist-style `TASKS.md`
- even putting example input/output formats into comments

Basically treated Claude like an intern with short-term memory loss.

And it worked. Like stupidly well.

The bugs dropped. The multi-step plans actually got followed. It even started REUSING code instead of rewriting the same function with a new name every time.

So here's my theory:

Claude Code doesn't suck.. it's just built for structured thinkers.

If you vibe-code and hope it keeps up? You're gonna have a bad time.

If you give it breadcrumbs like Hansel on Adderall? It will build your gingerbread house *with plumbing*.

Not saying it's perfect. Context still leaks. Still refuses to end files with newlines unless you literally beg. But man - the productivity boost once I changed my workflow was wild.

Anyway. Curious - has anyone else tried this kind of "Claude-first" planning approach?

Or am I just accidentally LARPing as a project manager now?

Megathread? Lets go!

👇 Drop your weird Claude rituals. I need more.

I am a senior dev of 10 years, and have been using claude code since it's beta release (started in December IIRC).

I have seen countless posts on here of people saying that the code they are getting is absolute garbage, having to rewrite everything, 20+ corrections, etc.

I have not had this happen once. And I am curious what the difference is between what I am doing and what they are doing. To give an example, I just recently finished 2 massive projects with claude code in days that would have previously taken months to do.

1. A C# Microservice api using minimal apis to handle a core document system at my company. CRUD as well as many workflow oriented APIs with full security and ACL implications, worked like a charm.

2. Refactoring an existing C# API (controller MVC based) to get rid of the mediatr package from within it and use direct dependency injection while maintaining interfaces between everythign for ease of testing. Again, flawless performance.

These are just 2 examples of the countless other projects im working on at the moment where they are also performing exceptionally.

I genuinely wonder what others are doing that I am not seeing, cause I want to be able to help, but I dont know what the problem is.

Thanks in advance for helping me understand!

Edit: Gonna summarize some of the things I'm reading here (on my own! Not with AI):

- Context is king!

- Garbage in, Garbage out

- If you don't know how to communicate, you aren't going to get good results.

- Statistical Bias, people who complain are louder than those who are having a good time.

- Less examples online == more often receiving bad code.

i can't get anything done by constant handholding, whatever it does is one mistake after another. Don't read files, does not try to understand anything. Just assumes stuff. writes bad code. Unbelievable.

EDIT: Didn't renew subscription - Switched to codex - code quality is so much better, and does not add all the extra stuff only does what I ask it to do - will assess after a month again if should come back or not.

What the f*** am I supposed to do? Reflect on my thoughts? Make my own decisions?? Sit here and twiddle my thumbs like some kind of peasant from the pre-AI era?!

And don't even say "use Gemini,' absolutely not! That thing talks like it read a Wikipedia article on empathy.

Or god forbid, ChatGPT...

It's been over an hour, Anthropic. During the lowest usage hours when I actually get the most done. Get it the fuck together.

Many people have noticed quality declining. Here's what I think is actually happening:

Most of us have been building the same project for weeks if not months now. Our codebases grew from a few thousand LOC to over 10k. CC doesn't have 1M token context and won't read all your files (trust me, I've tried).

It requires a different approach at scale.

Here's what stopped working for me:

• Vague prompts without context

• Assuming it knows your file structure

• Quick instructions that worked with less than 20 files

What works for me now:

• Start every prompt with: "Read these files first: "

• Give surgical instructions: "In /api/chat.js line 45, modify the function to..."

• Follow up with "Review your edit and it's integration into my app"

I used to spend 1 minute prompting and 30 minutes debugging. Now I spend 10 minutes writing detailed prompts and get working code immediately.

This is what shifted for me. Your codebase got complex. Claude Code needs onboarding like a new developer would. Give it context, be specific, verify outputs.

My success rate with this approach is now over 90% first try. For the ones that don't make it, it's just a few tweaks away.

Been using CC since launch, tried Cursor, Codex, Replit, everything else. For me Opus in CC is hands down the best, but codex is not far behind. Sometimes I will have codex be the reviewer, and CC the dev.

Anyone else find any other techniques that work for larger codebases?