anecdotally, it seems like this helps find better places for code to sit, understands the nuances of a code base better, and does a better job avoiding duplicate functionality.

it's still very much a work in progress, the thing I'm struggling with most right now is to have claude even using the capability without directly telling it to.

there seems to be benefits to the native stack (which lists files and then hopes for the best) relative to this sometimes. Frankly, it seems to be better at understanding the file structure. Where this approach really shines is in understanding the code base.

one approach that can work is to tell model to load read skill and/or call shell script that overloads default, there are variety of ways to attempt this with any harness, claude specifically has hooks some of which allow go, no go, do this instead etc. and ya, agree on grokking code base, ast integration feels like natural next step