At Rōnin Consulting, we specialize in helping clients with large, complex codebases. One of our biggest challenges is efficiently onboarding these clients, basically getting our engineers up to speed on intricate systems so we can deliver value quickly.
That’s where Claude Code shines, especially with its “Codebase Q&A” feature, which has become one of my favorite tools for speeding up this process.
𝗖𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗤&𝗔: 𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗶𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘅 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲
The “Codebase Q&A” feature lets our engineers ask natural language questions about a client’s codebase and get precise, context-aware answers.
For example, if we’re looking at a new project and need to understand its authentication system, we can ask, “How does authentication work in this codebase?” Claude Code responds with a clear explanation, often including relevant code snippets and file paths.
Using Claude Code in this way helps us quickly weed through sprawling documentation and legacy code, allowing our team to ramp up faster than ever.
Instead of spending weeks piecing together how everything fits, our engineers can hit the ground running, delivering insights and solutions sooner. Using Claude Code this way is a game-changer for onboarding clients with massive, established codebases.
𝗔𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲: 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲, 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻, 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲, 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗶t
Beyond “Codebase Q&A,” we love the “explore, plan, code, commit” workflow. This structured approach ensures we fully understand a codebase before making changes.
We can explore the code, plan our updates, write them, and confidently commit. It minimizes bugs and keeps existing functionality intact, which is critical when working with complex systems.
𝗧𝗿𝘆 𝗶𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳
Claude Code’s best practices have transformed how we work at Ronin, and I’m confident they can do the same for you. Check out this article on “Claude Code: Best Practices for agentic coding” and experiment with these techniques in your projects.
Whether it’s “Codebase Q&A” or the “explore, plan, code, commit” workflow, you’ll immediately see how they streamline your development process.
