Exponent can drastically increase the speed and quality of your development work when used effectively. This guide is a short collection of things to keep in mind when using Exponent and some ways to steer the product to work better for you. Keep in mind that working with AI assistants is a skill that improves with practice – as you use Exponent more, you’ll develop your own patterns and approaches that work best for your specific needs and workflow.

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Strong Communication

  • Be specific in your prompts: Rather than asking “Fix this bug,” provide context like “Fix the memory leak in the user authentication flow that occurs after 5 login attempts”
  • Provide clear objectives: Tell Exponent what you’re trying to accomplish, not just the immediate task
  • Use progressive disclosure: Start with a high-level task, then add details as needed rather than overwhelming with information upfront
  • Reference key files directly: Use the @ symbol to reference specific files when asking questions about them

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Effective Workflows

  • Create checkpoints before significant changes: Use checkpoints to save your current state before attempting experimental changes
  • Use chat summaries for long sessions: Create summaries when conversations get lengthy to maintain context and performance
  • Start with manual confirmation: Begin with manual confirmation mode until you understand how Exponent approaches tasks
  • Progress gradually to auto-confirm: Advance to read-only auto-confirm, then to full auto-confirm as you build trust
  • Set appropriate step limits: When using auto-confirm, start with 5-10 steps and adjust based on task complexity

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Conclusion

By following these best practices, you’ll be able to work more effectively with Exponent and achieve better results. Remember that working with AI assistants is a skill that improves with practice – as you use Exponent more, you’ll develop your own patterns and approaches that work best for your specific needs and workflow. If you’ve discovered effective patterns or techniques not covered here, we’d love to hear about them. Please share them with us along with share links to your chats in our Discord community.

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