Teaching AI to teach itself: Why configuration beats correction

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I spent weeks fighting with AI agents, giving detailed prompts every single time. “Write good commit messages. Add proper tests. Follow the project structure.” Over and over.

It worked. Kind of. But it was exhausting.

Then I realized: the quality of work you get from an AI agent is directly proportional to the effort you put into its configuration files.

Not the prompts. Not the model. The configuration.

Fix the workflow, not the instance

When the AI makes the same mistake repeatedly—vague commit messages, incomplete tests, missing documentation—your instinct is to correct it in the moment.

Configuration on Daniel's Tech Blog

Teaching AI to teach itself: Why configuration beats correction

Fix the workflow, not the instance