Most Claude Code and Cursor setups I see fail the same way: the model writes plausible code, breaks conventions, invents APIs, and the human spends the session correcting it. The fix is never a better prompt typed into the chat box. It is the files the agent reads before it writes a single line.
After comparing dozens of working setups from senior engineers, the pattern is boring and consistent. The good setups all have five things.
1. A CLAUDE.md (or AGENTS.md) that reads like onboarding docs
Not "You are a helpful assistant." A real one: the stack, the commands that actually run the tests, the naming conventions, the directories the agent should never touch, and the definition of done. Weak setups skip this and pay for it in every session.
2. Explicit workflow contracts
Strong setups tell the agent how to work, not just what the project is. Plan before code. Show the diff strategy before large refactors. Run the test suite before declaring victory. These are checklists, and they belong in files the agent loads every time, not in your head.
3. Review checklists tuned to the repo
Generic "review this code" prompts catch generic problems. The setups that catch real bugs point the agent at the project's actual failure modes: the ORM gotchas, the auth boundary, the places where migrations go wrong.
4. Guardrails against confident nonsense
The best configs include rules like "if you are about to invent a function, search the codebase first" and "if the test command fails, stop and report instead of patching around it." Agents hallucinate least when the rules name the failure.
5. Task templates for repeat work
Writing a migration, adding an endpoint, cutting a release: the good setups have a template for each, so the agent produces the same shape every time instead of improvising.
The shortcut
I got tired of reassembling this from scratch for every repo, so I packaged my own setup into The Agentic Coding Kit: 34 files covering CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md templates, system prompts, agent rules, code review checklists, and workflows for Claude Code, Cursor, and similar tools. Drop it into a repo and the agent starts behaving like it read the onboarding docs, because it did.
Whether you buy a pack or write your own, the lesson from the audit stands: the setup files are the product. The chat prompt is just the ignition.
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