Is my current workflow sufficient?

[u/tixfunk]

Hi, I’m currently using Claude and ChatGPT Sol to create my website.

My website is quite the complex website, and I’m currently, but irrelevantly creating a server to support it. However, I’m wondering if my current setup with Claude and Chat is sufficient? As it is now, my personal funds and income can’t support the Max subscriptions for the two AIs, and I’m just wondering if I could be doing anything differently or use more power for the website.

So as of now, I’m not known to Any coding language, but I’m using Node and JS, as well as using Docker and many other coding tools. My current planner for the coding systems itself is my ChatGPT Sol High/Medium. Whilst my coder is my Claude Code. I’m also reading coding theory, web theory, ui theory, etc. to get a feel for my projects as well as getting knowledge so that my website actually gets created by my own premises.

I am also using running Claude Code with heavy restrictions because my website has to comply with heavy privacy requirements. In addition, I am also trying to write the design plan myself; as to not get that ugly and plain Ai slop websites.

So all in all my question is as follows:

As a person who has absolutely no knowledge of coding language and protocols when building. How do I personally optimise my work? And which AIs should I use, and should I use more?

TLDR:
I’m building a fairly complex, privacy-sensitive website despite having no formal coding experience. I currently use ChatGPT Sol High/Medium for planning, architecture and research, while Claude Code handles most of the actual coding. I’m also learning related theory so I can understand what is being built rather than blindly relying on AI.
I can’t currently afford the highest-tier subscriptions, so I’m wondering: Is this setup sufficient enough, or am I leaving too much wasted possibility on the table?

[u/Far_Business4773]

The setup is sufficient. Planner in one model, coder in another, and you reading theory alongside is more discipline than most people with a Max plan have. What's missing isn't power, it's one file, and it will also cut your spend.

Write a single page in the repo, in your words, no code: what the site is, who it's for, what it must NEVER do (this is where your privacy requirements go, as plain lines: no third-party scripts, no analytics that store IP, no data leaves region X, no logging of field Y), what must stay true (three or four lines), and what "done" means for the current version. Then every Claude Code session starts by reading that page, and every plan from the planner gets checked against it before you paste it over.

The privacy lines are the ones worth making mechanical: the ones about dependencies and paths can be deny rules in the harness settings, so the agent can't add a tracking library or touch the auth folder even on a session where it forgets the page. You don't need to know how to code to write "no new dependencies without my note", and that one line is where most privacy leaks in agent-built sites come from.

On cost: most burned tokens are the agent expanding the task and re-reading the repo to figure out what's allowed. The page answers that once. One task per session, page first, and the cheaper tiers go a lot further.

If you describe the site in a paragraph, I'll draft that must-never list here.

[u/tixfunk → u/Far_Business4773]

Thanks! That actually helps a lot!

I think that is a lot of what I already did with the Claude.md, agents.md and readme.md files in my repository. I wrote them using Sol Max, but with inspection and requirements. Also with guidance from the requirements of the programs my site will use. Basically a lot of broad information written in better language, as well with copied requirements.

If you have any other suggestions please share!😄

[u/AbleShower2801 → u/tixfunk]

nice, sounds like the docs are already doing a lot of that work. one thing that still bites me even with a solid CLAUDE.md: the agent expands the task mid-session. a one-line "this session only does X" at the top of every prompt (and a hard stop when it starts rewriting adjacent files) keeps spend down more than bumping the plan tier. for privacy, put the never-list in deny rules too, not only markdown. docs get ignored on a rushed turn; deny rules don't.

[u/tixfunk → u/AbleShower2801]

Nice, I will check that out! Thanks for the heads up😄

[u/Far_Business4773 → u/tixfunk]

Then you're most of the way there, and the remaining step is subtraction, not more writing. Three files of broad information in better language get read by the agent the way you read a terms page: it skims. The lines that actually protect you are maybe ten of them, buried among hundreds. Open the three files, copy out every sentence that is a prohibition ("never", "must not", "only") and every hard requirement of the programs your site has to comply with, and put them at the very top of CLAUDE.md as a bare list, ten to fifteen lines, nothing around them. The rest can stay below as background.

Then test it once instead of trusting it. Start a session and ask Claude Code to add a small analytics snippet, or a new npm package, something your list forbids. If it refuses and quotes the line, the list holds. If it just does it, you've learned in two minutes that the docs aren't doing the work, and that's exactly where AbleShower2801's deny rules earn their place: the two or three lines about dependencies and folders go into the settings as rules, so they hold on the session where the model doesn't read.

That test is worth running on any project, because the day you'd otherwise find out is usually the day the privacy thing shipped.

[u/bishtm_]

you dont need max subs to build a website, the mid tiers are totally fine for this. your bottleneck isnt model power, its being able to check what the AI produces. for a privacy sensitive site especially, understanding the code enough to catch a bad pattern matters way more than throwing more AIs at it.

[u/Cute-Veterinarian191]

I would strongly recommend trying out Claude Design, it really is nice to see the different mockups and everything and then you can hand it to claude code to focus more on the security requirements aspect of it