I think this is one of the core issues people have when trying to program with them. If you have a long conversation with a bunch of edits, it will start to get unreliable. I frequently start new chats to get around this and it seems to work well for me.
Yes, this definitely helps. It's just incredibly annoying because you have to dump context back into it, re-type stuff, consolidate stuff from the prior conversation, etc.
Have the AI maintain a document (a local file or in canvas) with project goals, structure, setup instructions, current state, change log, todos, caveats, etc. You might need to remind it to keep it up-to-date, but I find this approach quite useful.
