The Agentic Loop
Plan, act, observe, adjust. Memorise the rhythm.
Every productive Claude Code session has the same four beats, played over and over. Plan: you state intent. Act: the agent reads, edits, runs. Observe: you read the diff and tool output. Adjust: you correct with a sentence. The loop runs again.
The most common beginner mistake is collapsing 'observe' into 'act' — accepting the diff without reading it. The second most common is collapsing 'adjust' into a new plan — restarting the agent with a fresh prompt instead of correcting the existing one. Both habits throw away most of the leverage.
Small turns are the secret. One intent per turn. Five small intents beat one giant intent every time. The smaller the turn, the cleaner the diff, the easier the steer.