·Question
Claude writes me a working Python script, then one small change later something unrelated is broken and I cannot tell what moved.
I am in claims operations, not a developer. The script reads our claims spreadsheet, finds anything with no update in fourteen days, and writes those rows to a second sheet so we can chase them. It worked on Tuesday. I asked for one change, to skip claims already marked closed, and after that it started counting weekends inside the fourteen days, which it was not doing before. I never asked it to touch the date logic. I am also no longer sure which file on my desktop is the version that worked. Is there a way of working that does not end with me starting again every two days?
This answered it
Before you ask for any change, copy the working file into a folder with the date in the name. claims-check-2026-08-25-working.py and so on. It is not proper version control and it does not need to be. It means starting again costs you an hour instead of two days, and you can open the last good one next to the broken one and see what moved.
Embarrassingly simple and I have not been doing it. Thank you.
One change per message, and run it before you ask for the next one. Send three changes at once and you have no way of knowing which of them broke the dates.
When it breaks, paste the actual error text back in along with what you expected. Not "it is broken". Something like: I expected fourteen calendar days and got fourteen working days, here is the error. With the real text it usually fixes it first try. Without it you get a guess, and often a second bug on top of the first.
Ask it to tell you what it is about to change, and which part of the script, before it writes anything. If the plan is already wrong you have saved yourself the afternoon.