I’ve tried Cursor, Claude Code, Ollama, etc. — but I still don’t know how to use AI effectively for coding

I’ve experimented with Cursor, Antigravity, Claude Code/CLI, Ollama, Gemma 4B, MiniMax, Hermes Agent, and different local/cloud models. My problem isn’t knowing what these tools are—I don't know how to use them efficiently in a real development workflow. I’m confused about: Which models are best for coding, debugging, planning, and reasoning? Which free/cloud models are actually worth using? Which local models are good for coding? When should I use Cursor vs Claude Code vs an agent? How should I combine local + cloud models? How do experienced developers use AI for vibecoding without creating a mess they have to fix later? I'd love to hear your practical workflow: Task → Tool/Agent → Model → Why I'm more interested in real-world experience and workflows than benchmarks. Basically, I've learned how to run AI models. Now I want to learn how to use them properly for development. submitted by /u/Beastboy [link] [comments]

Related

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• I have a Macbook AIR M5 Base and I want to run an Agentic Coding program, similar to Claude Code or Codex. Besides the model, how do I do it? I've already tried with Ollama, VS Code, Opencode, and haven't been able to. (I'm not a developer, sorry)
• Local Claude workflow?
• Run Claude Code on your local Ollama models

Source: r/ollama | 2026-08-14