The 1-day-thrown-away rule: Read the code before letting your AI write new code

An AI agent generated an unreadable duplicate of a component that already existed in the repository.

After the duplicate was found, the output was reverted and the author highlighted the mistake.

The takeaway: do a quick upfront search of nearby files before asking AI to create new code.

That small check can prevent duplicated implementations, wasted time, and a full day of rework.