From Assisted to Orchestrated AI Development using Maestro

Note: This article was published in the Dutch Java Magazine in September 2026If you read this magazine, it most likely means that you're already using AI every day to assist you in your development. Depending on where you work and your taste, it could be Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor or any of the millions of other options.For me, the workflow has been like this: Start using the Junie features from within IntelliJ IDEA. Things like "explain issue" or "generate unit tests". As models grew better, I moved into my terminal and started asking Claude Code to do tasks for me. Using this method, and given you have a high enough plan you can start building multiple of those features at once. Maybe you start using 'plan mode' to create specs so that Claude sticks to what you want to build. You basically spend most of your day in a terminal, and not in your IDE any more. The thing is, it still feels clunky. You constantly have to switch contexts, and you lose sight of which terminal is…