Why AI Coding Needs Anti-Patterns
Something shifted in software over the last couple of years, and most teams felt it before they found the language for it.
Read excerpt →A field guide by Tim O'Brien
Meet the Fighter, the Wizard, the Rogue, and the Cleric.
Four developer archetypes, four monsters, and the review prompts that catch AI-generated slop before it ships. A field guide for teams who want to name the pattern instead of blaming the person.
Know the patterns. Name them in your next standup.
The field guide names the failure modes you've seen but couldn't quite describe — characters, monsters, and the symptoms each one leaves on a codebase.
character
The Cleric
The process will save us.
Symptom: Green builds shipping things nobody understands, AI-generated tests verifying AI-generated code, and a quiet erosion of human judgment from the review loop.
character
The Fighter
Charge first, ask questions never.
Symptom: Two hundred lines of plausible code in thirty seconds, merged before lunch. Velocity metrics love them. Postmortems hate them.
character
The Rogue
Rules are for people who get caught.
Symptom: Hot-fixed branches, missing tests, and 'I'll add the review later' that never comes. Things ship. Other things break quietly.
character
The Wizard
When all you have is a prompt, everything looks like a spell.
Symptom: Architectural decisions justified with 'the model said,' design docs that read like prompt outputs, and a creeping inability to explain why the system is shaped the way it is.
archetype
Bulldozer of Confidence
Charge first, ask questions never
Symptom: Large, fast pull requests that work on the happy path but crumble under edge cases. Code reviews met with 'it works, though.' When AI-generated code breaks, they don't analyze the failure — they prompt the AI again and replace the broken code with new generated code.
archetype
Daredevil of Disaster
Every model launch is a migration plan
Symptom: GitHub full of partially finished projects. Local environment cluttered with experimental tools. References to obscure services. Treats governance as an inconvenience for less visionary people. Can burn through thousands of dollars in API costs in a single day.
See what you're getting
Get the AI Field Guide Cheat Sheet
A free, printable four-page PDF with the bestiary, the code review checklist, team prompts, and decision frameworks. Read the fun version in the book; keep this one nearby when the slop starts showing up at work.
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What this book gives a team
- Shared vocabulary for AI coding failures
- Review prompts for AI-generated code
- Team interventions for retros and planning
- Decision frameworks for AI tooling
Use this with your team
The book's highest-value use isn't solitary reading. It's shared vocabulary in code reviews, planning meetings, and retros — before things get personal.
- Drop a monster name into your next retro and watch the conversation get specific in under a minute.
- Run a sprint planning session against the Scope Creep Kraken checklist.
- Use the Phantom Intern review prompts on the next AI-touched PR.
- Send a chapter to a teammate instead of writing the awkward Slack message yourself.
Try a diagnostic
Two quick interactive tools built from the book — useful on their own, sharper after the chapters.
~60 seconds · 8 questions
Which class are you?
Find out whether you're a Fighter, Wizard, Rogue, or Cleric — and what AI is amplifying about you.
Take the quiz →~90 seconds · symptom checker
What's haunting your codebase?
Check the symptoms you've actually seen. Watch the haunting meter rank the four monsters in real time.
Run the diagnostic →Read before you buy
Start with the introduction, then pick a monster.
Meet the Scope Creep Kraken
If you've spent any time around AI-assisted software work, you already know the moment when the Scope Creep Kraken first puts a tentacle on the boat.
Read excerpt →The Phantom Intern Is Already on Your Team
Code appears in your repository with no clear author, no review trail, and no institutional memory. It was generated, pasted, and committed. Now it's your problem.
Read excerpt →What readers are saying
“I gave this to my team, and after people laughed they realized that we had some of these anti-patterns already in place.”
“This book made it easier for us to have some difficult conversations. It was easier because we could laugh.”
The AI Developer's Field Guide
Classes, Monsters, and Anti-Patterns in AI Coding
A practical field guide to the anti-patterns of AI-assisted coding, using classes, monsters, and interventions to help software teams spot trouble early and build better habits.
ISBN: 979-8-9952597-0-1 · eBook ISBN: 979-8-9952597-1-8
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Name the failure modes before they become culture.
For developers, engineering managers, and technical leaders.