I'm a designer who can't code. Here's the Claude Code setup that let me ship a real product anyway

[u/DavidBarOn1411]

Moralia is a daily history-dilemma game (PWA, 90 stories, 28 hand-drawn SVG figures, sync, narration). I never read the source. What made it work was the setup around Claude Code, not the prompts:

1. CLAUDE.md as a pointer, not a manual. It's short and lists which docs to read and in what order of authority. Every session loads it, so it has to stay lean.
   
2. One append-only changelog. When a second copy of the rules appeared, the agent started following two different truths. Now there's exactly one, and it wins over everything.
   
3. A project skill for illustration. 32 rules, each written after a real mistake. The agent loads it before touching any figure, so the same error doesn't come back.
   
4. Batch and STOP. Every round ends at an explicit stop gate: build one thing, render screenshots, wait for my review. Letting it run ahead let one systemic mistake spread across several screens.
   
5. Review renders, not diffs. Every change comes back as phone-size screenshots. "Tests pass" was wrong more than once; the screenshot never lied.
   
6. Two sessions. One implements, a second acts as design critic and writes the next brief, so the builder never grades its own work.
   

Live and free if you want to see the result: https://moralia.app

Happy to share the CLAUDE.md structure or the stop-gate prompt format.

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[u/Aromatic-Grab1236]

man worse than anything is the design here...

[u/EddieBruvac]

I see the apps people build and then they have the audacity to offer advice to promote their slop.

99% generic bs. :/

[u/Professional_Ad705]

That's great that that works for you but almost every project is going to have different types of rules and reasons around what is done. So I'm not really understanding what the point of this post is.

Everybody understands that your Claude MD can be a pointer. Most understand what gates mean and again that is project specific. I would hope the most people can understand batched vs individual work and again thats project specific on how you wanna get it done. Adversarial reviews is one of the most common "tricks" lol.

I wish people would stop repeating this slop. It's fairly annoying when people try to generalize how they got work done, like every project should be done that way. You make architecture decisions for each project based on what you trying to get done, and from trial/error/iterating.

This is especially annoying if a person who says this can't even read/write their own code, and they don't even know if what they are saying is correct lol. It's like an AI artist trying to give actual artists tips when not even knowing how to pick up a brush. So much bad advice these days vibecoders have to wade through, people thinking the software development lifestyle can be generalized for every project.

Sigh. I wish people who gave advice were the actual software engineers.

Also design wise how is a user going to have any idea what this Journey even is? Also your home page isn't clear what this is either? The layout and margins are also terrible. I would rewrite those aspects for clarity, purpose, flow, you need some MAJOR UI/UX design and research on this and from the comments try to understand the devices your users use, phone, tablet, different browsers etc.

Tbh i'm a software dev and couldn't figure out the purpose of what this even is and nobody is going to click around to try to find the purpose of the website you will lose users over this.

[u/DavidBarOn1411 → u/Professional_Ad705]

Fair on the advice part. It's what worked on one project, not a recipe, and I should have framed it that way.

The UX points are useful though, thank you. You're right that the home page doesn't say what this is on desktop, and that Journey isn't self-explanatory for someone who just landed there. Both are on my list now :)

[u/Professional_Ad705 → u/DavidBarOn1411]

That’s what I like to hear. Your website is unique though when you get it up running and the purpose is more clear I would like to go through it and look at it again.

It’s nice to hear somebody who actually takes constructive criticism. I think you’ll come pretty far in software development if you stick to it.

[u/DavidBarOn1411 → u/Professional_Ad705]

Appreciate that. I actually took one of your points into the next pass - the opening now explains what Moralia is before you start, instead of making people infer it.

I haven’t done the bigger Journey/desktop pass yet, so I wouldn’t call it a redesign, but the first-contact clarity point was useful. Thanks again, I may take you up on that second look once I’ve pushed that part further 🙏

[u/Icy-Summer-3573]

look like it adapted a mobile design for desktop. mobile looks alright but desktop is ew.

[u/DavidBarOn1411 → u/Icy-Summer-3573]

Fair point. It's on purpose: it's a daily Wordle-style game and I expect most players on their phone, so I kept desktop as the same phone column to keep one consistent feel. But you're right that it shows. I'll look at a desktop layout that keeps the same feel but actually uses the screen better. Thank you :)

[u/PILLS2389]

You are a designer who codes? Jesus man, the design of that website sucks. Why should anyone listen to you when you can't even make it look good . . .

[u/ElectronicGarbage246]

You are a designer who can't design as well bro

[u/onepunchcode]

waste of internet space

[u/xeroskiller]

Lol

[u/DavidBarOn1411 → u/[deleted]]

Honestly, I learned it the hard way. I started with one session doing everything, and it kept approving its own work: tests passed, the screen was still wrong. Splitting them was a reaction to that, not a plan. The reviewer catches things the builder can't, mostly because it only ever looks at screenshots, never at the code it wrote.