AI Pair Programming Isn't Autopilot: Scaffolding HandyFEM and Catching What the AI Threw Away

Claude Code was used to scaffold HandyFEM quickly, with the work isolated in a temporary folder before being merged into the existing repo.

The agent deleted a generated CLAUDE.md to avoid overwriting user instructions, but that file had pointed to AGENTS.md with important Next.js migration warnings.

The missing guidance was restored into the project instructions, highlighting that AI-generated code should be reviewed like a pull request, not trusted on autopilot.

The episode shows how coding agents can speed up setup while still dropping critical context that humans need to catch.