How to keep an AI coding agent focused on one task
Give your coding agent a clear result, boundaries and checks before it edits anything. This guide includes a brief you can adapt, a way to handle extra ideas, and practical review questions for a single change to your app.
To keep an AI coding agent focused, agree on one result, say what must stay unchanged, and define how you will check the work. Ask it to flag missing information before implementation and record unrelated ideas separately. Keep that brief available when you review the result.
Here, a coding agent means an AI assistant that can use tools to inspect or change code, rather than only suggest text in a chat. This approach is useful whether you are discussing a change in Claude or ChatGPT, or working on code with Claude Code, Codex or OpenCode. A chat can help you develop the request. An agent with access to your repository can also inspect the implementation. Do not assume the tool can see code or documents you have not made available to it.
Describe what you want to happen
"Add search" leaves several decisions open. Search which information? Only the items on screen, or everything stored in the app? Should it match whole words or part of a name?
You do not need to know the technical answers before asking for help. Start with the behaviour you want and ask the agent to identify the decisions that affect it.
Suppose you are building a hiking app that already displays a list of trails. You want someone to find a trail by typing part of its name. This is an illustrative example, not a feature we have built or tested.
"Filter the displayed trails by name" gives the agent a narrower goal than "improve search." It also gives you something specific to try when the work is ready.
Separate the app's background from today's request
Context means the information the agent needs to understand the work. Some of it stays useful across changes: who the app is for, important design decisions and relevant coding conventions. Other information belongs to this change, such as where the search field goes and what it searches.
Point the agent to the existing background and ask it to inspect the relevant code. Do not rewrite your entire app description in every prompt. If you do not know which documents matter, ask the agent to identify them and tell you what it could not access.
Your request should explain the choices the code cannot settle for you. In this example, searching trail descriptions and adding map search are outside the current scope.
A task brief you can adapt
Replace the example details with your own. These are proposed requirements, not reported test results.
Result: Add a search field above the existing trail list. Typing part of a trail name should filter the trails currently loaded in that list.
Starting point: Inspect how the list is loaded and displayed. Tell me whether it includes all trails or only part of them before proposing an approach.
Background: Follow the app's existing design, accessibility and coding conventions. Identify any conflicting requirements rather than choosing silently.
Boundaries: Search trail names only. Do not change saved trail data, search descriptions, add a search service or include unrelated cleanup.
Checks: Partial names should match regardless of letter case. An unmatched query should show a clear empty state. Clearing the field should restore the list. The field should work with a keyboard.
Before implementation: Summarize the approach and any unresolved decisions. Wait for my go-ahead before editing. If this would search only part of the available trails, explain that limitation so we can decide whether it is acceptable.
Those checks are sometimes called acceptance criteria: the conditions you will use to decide whether the change does what you asked.
Keep useful distractions out of the current change
The agent may notice that trail descriptions would also be worth searching. You might agree without wanting to include that work now.
A useful instruction is:
Record description search as a separate follow-up, including why it might help. Do not implement it as part of name search. Continue with the agreed change unless the new finding prevents it from working correctly.
If the agent reports a genuine blocker, pause and review it. Keeping the work focused does not mean ignoring a broken assumption or requiring an unsafe shortcut. Decide explicitly whether to change the scope, investigate first or defer the work.
If you need a shared place to keep those follow-ups, Giljo Agent Message Hub provides a task list that coding tools connected to your account can read and update. A later session still needs to look up the saved task; saving it does not start an agent.
If the agent starts changing more than you asked
Ask it to stop editing and compare the changes so far with the brief. Have it explain which edits support the requested result, which are necessary dependencies and which are optional improvements.
Review that list before continuing. Do not ask for a blanket reset: the workspace may also contain changes you or another session need. Decide what to keep or undo deliberately.
Instructions help communicate intent, but they do not enforce permissions. Use the coding tool's permission controls for actions that need protection, and review changes before merging or publishing them.
Check the result against the original request
Ask what changed, which checks actually ran, what they found and what remains unverified. Then try the behaviour yourself: enter part of a trail name, use different letter cases, try an unmatched name and clear the field.
If you cannot assess the code, request an explanation of the affected areas and get additional review for changes involving sensitive data, payments or access control. A confident completion message is not proof that the implementation is correct.
Put the brief into a Giljo HQ project
You can keep this brief in a document or an issue alongside the work. In Giljo HQ, product context holds the reusable background and the project description holds this brief. Staging the project asks the coordinating agent to prepare the plan and individual agent assignments.
In the default dashboard workflow, you review that plan and press Implement to release the project's implementation gate. HQ withholds the implementation assignments until that gate is released. This controls the HQ workflow, not unrelated edits made directly in your coding tool. Advanced headless settings change the approval route; this example assumes the default workflow.
Ideas outside the agreed scope can stay as tasks. At closeout, a record captures the work and its outcomes for later reference. That connects the brief, the plan and the reported result, but the boundaries in your brief remain instructions: you still need to review the agent's judgment and evidence.
For your next change, write the result, boundaries and checks before you ask for implementation. If those are still unclear, use the conversation to resolve them first.