Build Your Own Software with Claude Code

It's been some time now that I have been hearing about Codex, Copilot, Replit, or Claude code. They are all coding-versions of LLMs, which basically means they can transform sentences into code. I'm not going to go too much into details here, but long story short: what once required years of technical training to build software is now mostly accessible to everyone.

"And so what?", you might ask. Well, what if we could use it for self-improvement?

In early February, I got myself a Claude Pro membership, downloaded the app, and started my first digital project: my Life Manager.

Before we go further, I recommend you think for a couple minutes and try to come up with habits you'd like to improve or create in your life. Once that's done, let me run through this use-case of AI-enabled vibe-coding.

My journey started with two ideas: track my contacts (a direct consequence of living abroad last year) and start journalling. Having an updated and complete view of people I know, and creating a healthy journalling habit was the backbone of this project.

Quickly, I figured out that there were a bunch of things I wanted to improve in my daily life, and that understanding how I, Noe, usually build my habits was the first step. I wanted to build a gamified platform gathering different features like meditation, daily learnings written with Claude's API, activity and nutrition tracker with integrated coaches to help me reach my fitness and health objectives, portfolio management and news generator. I even created a specific wordle mini game with the League of Legends universe (I don't recommend it, it's hard).

What started with a CRM software for my contact transformed into a platform, locally hosted on my computer, that would motivate me to login daily, achieving badges, earning XP and grinding levels.

Claude Code would turn my ideas into plans and plans into code. I would create AI specialized subagents in user interface, testing, and designing. Claude was orchestrating that team depending on my requests. Plan limits would slow down the progress, but give me time to reflect on what I wanted to get out of this app.

This is highly personalized and I don't want to claim that you need the same app. But I think reflecting on your goals, looking ahead, and how to build your future self is a worthy exercise. And Claude Code enables you to build something that will help you reach those goals!

If I feel like it's necessary, I might write a complete guide on how to technically build the app, with guidelines and structure, and document how I created mine. For now, I'll leave you with a few pieces of advice, while still being reachable if you have any questions.

• It may seem obvious with a step back but create virtuous cycles and ask Claude (or any other AI you want to use) how to best use that specific AI. It generates report on what you did right, what could be improved and how to act on those recommendations. Keep the feedback loop. I'm gradually improving my use of AI not by seeing others use it for their personal use-cases, but by understanding how the AI can help me, in my specific use-case.
• I've already made the mistake of using the default model while latest models were significantly better, don't do that. Use the latest models. Models are coming left and right, day and night, and new models are getting exponentially better. Make sure you use the latest models and that you understand the strengths of each one of them.
• Don't try to one-shot a project, iteration will do the trick so start with one or two features, then keep improving the feeling on the app and keep using it. Take notes of your ideas and the issues you've stumbled upon while using it, and when you have time, explore them with Claude.
• Go crazy, the app is entirely yours, the only limit is your creativity, it just needs to be perfect for you, no one else.

The key takeaway is to be curious, to read, experience and have fun with this new tool. It is likely to spread across most office jobs and "knowledge" jobs within years, so you better start paying attention to who's leading the way, and whether their values hold under pressure.

Also, Anthropic just released some free classes, worth having a quick look.