I recently wrote a post called Switching from doing to directing, about how AI-assisted development is changing the mental model of software engineering.

A little later, I realized that another post should probably have come before it. This is my attempt to fill that gap.

During longer Fable sessions, especially the ones where I pushed it into harder tasks, something became very visible to me. Maybe because the distance between me, as the person directing the work, and the process writing the code was much shorter than it usually is inside a development team.

Understanding the domain and generating the code that implements the abstractions are two different tasks.

AI is already very good at the second one. Probably better than I am, even though I have spent most working days of the last twenty years with my hands in code.

But the story of a solution does not start with writing code.

Very often, it starts with the client. With finding out what the real problem is and understanding why it matters. That requires asking good questions. Sometimes from half-sentences. It means noticing the compromises that are not said out loud. It means connecting what you hear to earlier projects, architectural patterns, and platform choices you have seen before.

Then comes the harder part: quickly imagining the system or software product that could actually solve the problem. Identifying the risky or unclear parts. Deciding what needs to be prototyped early because it could change the shape of the whole solution.

All of this has to stay in your head while the work moves forward. You keep the mental model alive. You make many small decisions. And only then can you step into the directing role properly: describing the context, constraints, and guardrails that make code generation useful.

Personally, I still find the phase before code is written the most interesting. It is also where I think I am strongest. There is still challenge there. There is room for speed, precision, and better judgment.

AI does not take that away from me.

It creates a faster path from that understanding to something real.