Working with Claude Code and coding agents such as OpenCode and Mistral Vibe: setup, letting them run on their own, skills and the habits that help.
A coding agent reads your project, edits files and runs commands while you say in plain language what needs to happen. This topic is about working with one every day, mostly with Claude Code.
If you are just starting, read Claude Code in PhpStorm first for installing the CLI and the plugin, and then Using Claude Code effectively: keeping the context clean, planning first and letting Claude check its own work. If the agent has to keep working on its own for longer, Letting Claude Code work autonomously helps. Claude Code Routines shows how a task runs in the cloud on a schedule.
Claude Code is not the only one. In OpenCode you choose the model yourself, and Mistral Vibe is the European, open-source option, with a side-by-side comparison with Claude Code. Claude plugins and Superpowers and the four Karpathy rules against AI code that does too much are about working to a fixed method.
Graphify turns your code into a knowledge graph your coding agent can query. Tested on 153 PHP files: fast and free, but code outside a function gets no edges at all. What the token claims are worth, and a script to check your own project.
Four agents running and one has been waiting for you for twenty minutes. Herdr, Caprock and ccdeck each see it from a different place. What they can do, what they measure and send, what OSC 7501 changes, and which to pick.
Claude cannot make images, but it can look at them. With a free open model on your own graphics card and a skill, Claude Code makes photos and rejects bad ones. Measured on 8 GB: FLUX.3 Image Klein and Z-Image-Turbo, free APIs checked.
In three and a half minutes Claude Code found nine unexpected restarts and two blue screens on my PC, and gave one wrong piece of advice. Six runs and sixteen permission tests: what Claude Code may do on Windows, where it goes wrong and which setup is safe.
Devstral is gone from the API and Vibe runs on a model that is being retired by default. What Mistral offers for building software in November 2026: Vibe in VS Code and PhpStorm, which model for which task, prices, the EU endpoint and a tested PHP call.
Twenty customers book the same chair at once, and all twenty get in. How to start with Claude Code and Python: installation, plans, choosing an IDE, SQLite or PostgreSQL, CLAUDE.md and permissions, with measured results and a real session.
Most Claude Code tips are about hidden commands. The real difference comes from three things: keeping context clean, planning first and making Claude check its own work.
Jiayuan Zhang turned Karpathy's criticism of coding agents into four behaviour rules in a single CLAUDE.md. What they do, how to install them in Claude Code or Cursor, and where they stop.
A routine is a saved Claude Code task that runs in the cloud on a schedule, from an API call or on GitHub events. How to set one up and where the limits are.