Lesson 3 / 7 · ~10 minutes
Iterate in small steps
The first version is never the last, and that's fine. The difference between frustration and smooth work isn't the AI, it's the quality of your feedback. Five rules that will save you hours:
- One change at a time. Add → test → continue. Five changes at once means that when something breaks, you don't know which one caused it.
- What I see + what I expect. Instead of “it doesn't work”, write: “When I click the button, nothing happens. I expect the result to appear.”
- Attach evidence. Copy the entire error message. For visual problems, attach a screenshot. Claude reads more out of them than you'd expect.
- Number things. Multiple remarks? A numbered list, one item, one problem. Nothing gets lost.
- Going in circles? Stop. A third failed attempt at the same thing = tell it to go back to the last working version and propose a different approach.
Good feedback, live
We continue with the margin calculator from lesson 2, adding value persistence. Watch what a bug report looks like when Claude fixes the problem on the first try.
Decision game: what do you do?
Three situations you'll meet in your first week of vibecoding. Pick the best reaction.
1. After the last change the app shows a blank page. What do you write?
Option B has everything: what I see, since when, and evidence (the error message). From a report like that, Claude usually fixes the problem on the first try.
2. You have five improvements in mind. How do you brief them?
Small steps win: when something breaks, you know exactly which change caused it. (More experienced users can handle a numbered list at once, but they test after each item.)
3. Claude is “fixing” the same bug for the third time and it keeps coming back. Now what?
Repeating the same thing and expecting a different result doesn't work with AI either. Returning to a working version + changing approach is the professional reflex, and the “last working version” is what the whole next lesson is about.
Summary
- One change at a time, verify after each.
- Feedback = what I see + what I expect + evidence (message, screenshot).
- Multiple remarks → a numbered list.
- Three failed attempts → stop, roll back, different approach.