Mastering Cascade Workflows: Write Mode and Chat Mode

In our last lesson, we achieved something remarkable. With just a couple of high-level prompts, we directed Windsurf’s agent, Cascade, to build a fully playable 3D Snake game using Three.js. This was a powerful demonstration of the AI’s ability to act as an active participant in the development process.

But a real-world project is never truly done. It lives, breathes, and evolves. Now it is time to take on a new feature, a task every developer faces daily: enhancing an existing codebase. We are going to add a classic feature to our game: a persistent high-score system.

This new challenge presents us with a choice. How do we want to collaborate with our AI partner to implement this? A professional software engineer’s workflow often involves two distinct phases: first, understanding and planning, and then execution. We will use Cascade’s two primary modes to mirror this exact professional workflow. First, we’ll use Chat mode to have a conversation with our codebase to understand where to make changes. Then, once we have a clear plan, we’ll switch to Write mode to execute it autonomously.

Let’s dive in.

The two modes of collaboration

To work effectively with Cascade, it’s crucial to understand the distinct purpose of its two modes. They represent two different philosophies of collaboration.

1. Chat mode (The conversational analyst)

• Primary purpose: Chat mode is optimized for answering your questions. This is your go-to mode for understanding code, exploring possibilities, debugging issues, and getting explanations. Think of it as a Socratic partner, a brilliant senior engineer you can have a conversation with.

• Core interaction: You ask, it answers. While it can propose code ...