> but I require a ping pong with the LLM to iterate on the code/approach

I've never got results from any LLM when doing more than one-shots. I basically have a copy-pastable prompt, and if the first answer is wrong, I update the prompt and begin from scratch. Usually I add in some "macro" magic too to automatically run shell commands and what not.

It seems like they lose "touch" with what's important so quickly, and manages to steer themselves further away if anything incorrect ends up at any place in the context. Which, thinking about how they work, sort of makes sense.