Claude Code
How I go from idea to working product every time
Build Your First Website
The idiot's guide. I taught a mate who'd never properly used a Mac to go from zero installed to a real website, live on the internet with a link he could send his dad — in an afternoon, entirely by talking to Claude. A visual, click-through walkthrough: every step from installing the editor to deploying on Vercel, with a "what goes wrong" box for each bit that trips everyone up.
The Three Tiers of CLAUDE.md
Claude reads your CLAUDE.md files before every single prompt — its standing orders. Most people know about one; there are actually three tiers: folder, project, and your whole computer. What belongs at each level, a paste-ready starter template for all three, and the distill prompt that gets the smartest model you have to write yours — so its way of thinking stays even when the model goes.
10 Things to Do With Fable Before It Leaves Your Plan
Fable 5 stops being included in Pro, Max and Team plans on Tuesday 7 July — after that it's usage credits on top of your subscription. The ten best things to run through the smartest model Anthropic have ever shipped before the meter starts, each with the exact prompt to paste. Increasingly niche on purpose, and the last four keep paying you back after the window shuts.
Make Your App Stop Looking AI-Generated
There's a dead giveaway that an app was vibe-coded: the same fonts, the same grey cards, the same layout as everyone else's. That's Claude designing from memory. The fix is handing it parts to copy — 21st.dev is a library of thousands of properly designed React components, and this is exactly how to hand one to Claude. Plus the honest bits: quality varies, check the licence, and don't trade generic for jumble.
The Effort Dial
The magic thinking words — think hard, ultrathink — are folklore now. The real control is /effort: five levels from low to max that tell Claude how hard to try. Which level fits which job (and which one quietly drains your limit), what ultracode actually is, and an honest note on when the dial makes no difference at all.
10 Claude Code Commands You're Not Using
Anthropic have quietly built 75+ slash commands into Claude Code — you just type a slash. Most people use about three. The ten worth knowing: /init to give Claude a memory of your project, /context to see what's eating your tokens, /rewind to undo a change, /security-review before you push, /loop, /deep-research, /code-review --fix and more. Use all ten and you're in the top 1%.
The 4 Modes in Claude Code
Most people use Claude Code in one mode the whole time — the slow one, where it stops to ask permission for everything. There are four, and you flip between them with Shift + Tab: ask-before-edits, accept-edits, plan, and auto. What each one does, when to reach for it, the bits people get wrong (no, accept-edits doesn't say yes to everything), and the dangerous fifth setting you can't cycle to.
Turn Anything Into a Podcast
NotebookLM turns whatever you want to learn into a two-person podcast you can listen to on a walk — and most people stop at the default. The bit worth knowing: in Customise you tell the two hosts who to be. Have them rehearse a pitch (one plays the CEO you're pitching to), teach you something (one lecturer, you the student), or debate a decision both ways. The setup with screenshots, plus copy-paste persona prompts.
Make Your AI Stop Agreeing With You
AI is agreeable by default — it's trained on the answers people rated highest (the flattering ones), and it reads your wording for the answer you're hoping for. Two paste-ready instructions — one for Claude, one for ChatGPT — that sit above every chat and make it push back, point out the flaws, and tell you when you're wrong. Where each one goes, why it works, and an honest note on what it won't fix.
Catch the Holes Before You Ship
Vibe-coded apps get hacked on the same handful of mistakes — exposed keys, missing auth, injection. Claude Code's /security-review scans the changes on your branch for exactly those, reports each with a severity and a fix, then fixes them on your say-so. The command, a deeper copy-paste prompt, how it works, and an honest note on what it won't catch.
How to Set Up Connectors
Most people use AI for advice, then go and do the work themselves — clicking between calendar, inbox and docs, gathering context by hand. Connectors plug your real tools into Claude (or ChatGPT) so it reaches in and does the gathering itself. The five-step setup, what to ask first, and an honest note on access and permissions.
4 Loops That Have Nothing to Do With Code
Loops aren't just for engineers. Four that quietly run my week — an evening wrap-up that updates my CRM from meeting transcripts, a LinkedIn chase, a brief before every meeting, and my watch pulling in sleep and recovery. Paste-ready setups for the first three; the watch one's bespoke.
The Two Types of Loop
Before you start a loop, know which kind you're running. Deterministic loops hit a number they can measure (under 50ms, tests pass). LLM-as-judge loops grade fuzzy goals against a rubric ("until the code's clean"). When to use each, why your loop never finishes, and what a rubric actually is.
7 Ways to Actually Use Loops
Everyone talks about loops. Nobody says what to point one at. Seven named, practical loops — the speed loop, the overnight docs sweep, refactor till happy, logging, the nightly error sweep, an SEO + GEO audit, the eval loop — each a paste-ready prompt that gets Claude to set the whole loop up for you. Inspired by Matthew Berman.
Make Your Claude Chat Last Twice as Long
A long chat strains because one Claude is holding everything at once. Subagents fix that: Claude sends a helper to do the heavy reading in a separate memory and report back just the answer — so your main chat stays light and sharp. Plus the one line for your CLAUDE.md that automates it.
Why You Hit Your Claude Limit So Fast
It's probably not because you're using it too much. Every message you send, Claude re-reads the whole conversation to reply — so a long chat costs more every turn. What the context window is, what a token is, and the one habit that stops you torching your usage.
Stop Telling Claude It's an Expert
Almost every prompting guide tells you to open with "you are a world-class expert." Controlled studies say it doesn't improve accuracy — and can lower it, while making Claude sound more confident than it should. That, plus nine other ways to actually prompt it better.
The Verify Loop
Everyone's saying stop prompting and write loops. The loop is the easy part — a while-loop with nothing checking its work just agrees with itself twenty times. This skill is the loop done right: it runs one task, actually verifies it, commits on green, and stops itself. Built on Boris Cherny's loop engineering.
100+ AI Models, Free
DeepSeek, Kimi, Qwen, GLM and more — the best open models in the world, hosted by NVIDIA and free through one API key. It's OpenAI-compatible, so it drops into whatever you already build with. Grab a key, paste one prompt into Claude, done.
The Canary Trick
Plant one tiny instruction in your CLAUDE.md — a name Claude must open every reply with. The moment it disappears, your session is degrading and the rest of your instructions are slipping too. Borrowed from Van Halen's brown M&Ms. Inspired by Peter Steinberger and a Hacker News thread.
The Compliance Audit
Your vibe-coded product is probably illegal — not on purpose. This skill reads your repo and checks it against GDPR and the EU AI Act, then hands back a ranked list of exactly what to fix. Privacy policy, data deletion, AI disclosure, third parties. Inspired by Flagged.
The 3-Step AI Build System
Every AI project I build starts the same way. Not with a prompt. Not with a tool. With a notepad and five minutes of thinking. Pen & Paper, Plan Mode, Auto-Accept.
The Coding Guidelines CLAUDE.md
A drop-in CLAUDE.md with four rules that stop AI from overcomplicating, over-editing, and guessing. Think first, keep it simple, change only what's asked, prove it works. Copy it or let Claude install it.
GPT Prompt Engineering
Two drop-in Claude skills that make Claude write GPT prompts the way OpenAI actually recommends — one for GPT-4.1, one for GPT-5. Copy or download and drop into your project.
User Story Creation
Turn a feature idea into a detailed GitHub issue. Claude reads the codebase, plans the implementation, and creates a structured story — ready to build.
Teach AI to Do a Task Your Way
AI rarely does the same job the same way twice, so you end up re-explaining what you want every time. Teach it once instead: get it right, save the recipe, and it does the job your way from then on — no code. The no-code way for ChatGPT or Claude, plus the more powerful skill version if you use Claude Code.
How to Host on Vercel
Get a project from your laptop to a live URL — told as the prompts you give Claude, plus the two moments you take the wheel yourself.
How to Make Videos with Veo
Google's Veo makes short cinematic clips — but the prompt is everything. Hand Claude a template, chat through your idea, and paste its prompt into Flow. Plus which model to pick.
The LLM Council
Turn one question into five expert opinions, then a single clear verdict. Five advisors reason from different angles, peer-review each other, and a chairman tells you what to actually do.
Paxel
A new YC tool that reads your AI coding transcripts and builds a profile of how you actually work — your archetype, your habits, your patterns. Copy one prompt, paste it into Claude, and it sets you up.