Two Layers, One Mental Model: How I Stopped Fighting My AI Tools

The mess that triggered this A few months ago, my AI tool usage looked like most engineers&rsquo; AI usage. I was exploring several AI coding assistants — IDE-integrated ones, terminal agents, chat-based models — often more than one at a time. There was no system, no structure, no baseline. Which meant five things, all bad: Every session started from zero. I re-explained the project to the AI on…