Member-only story
I Took Boris Cherny (the Creator of Claude Code) at His Word — Here Is What 4 Days of Following His Tips Actually Looked Like
Implementing Boris Cherny’s Claude Code workflow tips on a real side project — what worked, what did not, and the highest-leverage change.
A TypeScript type mismatch buried three files deep that Claude Code had introduced while refactoring a utility function.
I had been staring at it for twelve minutes, scrolling through a bloated context window, when I realized the problem was not the code. The problem was me.
I was running a single Claude Code session for everything — planning, coding, debugging, testing — and the context had turned to mud.
Transparency note: AI tools helped research and refine parts of this piece. The hands-on testing, time measurements, and real-world examples are from my actual workflow over the past four days.
That was last Wednesday evening. By Sunday, after four days of systematically implementing the workflow tips that Boris Cherny has been sharing since January 2026, the same side project was in a completely different state. Not because the tool changed. Because my approach did.
