{"id":4675,"date":"2026-07-14T15:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T22:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/?post_type=wcb_session&p=4675"},"modified":"2026-07-14T15:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T22:21:08","slug":"teaching-ai-tools-your-process-notes-from-a-wordpress-site-build","status":"publish","type":"wcb_session","link":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/session\/teaching-ai-tools-your-process-notes-from-a-wordpress-site-build\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching AI Tools Your Process – Notes From a WordPress Site Build"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Earlier this year I was the sole developer on a new WordPress site build. AI tools moved the work along, but only because I spent the project teaching them how to work in my way – correcting mistakes, capturing what I learned, and feeding it back so they wouldn’t repeat them over and over again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This talk is about that practice: teaching your AI tools your process as you go, so they get better instead of just faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two actual instances from the project as examples:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. A mega-menu nav with a dead click zone where the AI’s first move was a complicated JavaScript event handler – the actual fix was a few CSS utility classes on the link.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. A tangled Tailwind class string that smelled wrong before I could name why – four AI agents running in parallel helped me diagnose it, clean it, and codify a rule that’s held up since.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    What I’ve learned and my process improvements go beyond just writing code:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    1. Asking for HTML output instead of markdown when richer visualizations are helpful.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. Dispatching multiple models to get different viewpoints for comparison and brainstorming solutions.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    3. Keeping the lessons I’ve taught the tools portable so I don’t lose the learning when I migrate to a new model.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      My processes are still evolving and improving. This talk gives a snapshot of where I’m at now and attendees will leave with a new set of tools and perspectives to improve their own AI interactions, grounded in actual project work on a shipped site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Earlier this year I was the sole developer on a new WordPress site build. AI tools moved the work along, but only because I spent the project teaching them how to work in my way – correcting mistakes, capturing what I learned, and feeding it back so they wouldn’t repeat them over and over again. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65621,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_wcpt_session_time":0,"_wcpt_session_duration":3000,"_wcpt_session_type":"session","_wcpt_session_slides":"","_wcpt_session_video":"","_wcpt_speaker_id":[4623],"footnotes":""},"session_track":[44],"session_category":[],"class_list":["post-4675","wcb_session","type-wcb_session","status-publish","hentry","wcb_track-ai"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgSBpQ-1dp","session_date_time":{"date":"","time":""},"session_speakers":[{"id":"4623","slug":"matt-vanderpol","name":"Matt Vanderpol","link":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/speaker\/matt-vanderpol\/"}],"session_cats_rendered":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sessions\/4675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sessions"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/wcb_session"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sessions\/4675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4962,"href":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sessions\/4675\/revisions\/4962"}],"speakers":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/speakers\/4623"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/wp-json\/wporg\/v1\/users\/bookwyrm"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"wcb_track","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/session_track?post=4675"},{"taxonomy":"wcb_session_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.wordcamp.org\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/session_category?post=4675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}