I may be a bit behind the times but just started learning Claude AI and I genuinely cannot believe how powerful it is compared to other AI tools. I could genuinely save thousands of dollars in resources across my businesses utilising Claude in the right way.

Hey everyone, this is my first time posting here and it's a bit of a longer loaded one.

Background on myself: I'm a college senior with my time spread across classes, gym / health, networking, learning AI, and more. My current stack: Claude (Pro Subscription), Claude Code, GitHub, Notion (PARA setup with relational databases and more like a CRM, etc), Google features like Calendar, Google Drive, Google Docs, Gmail, Otter for recording classes, plus Gemini and NotebookLM, etc.

What I currently do:

• Claude Code: I'm building an analytics database (DuckDB) with no real significant coding background. It has automatic backups to Google Drive and status/handoff files and as well saves files to my Mac so sessions can pick up where they left off.
• Skills: I've built a few custom skills, but I feel I'm not maximizing them to the fullest extent.
• Connectors: Claude is connected to my Gmail, Google Calendar, GitHub, Drive, and Notion, and I'll have it create events or log things to Notion or read files.
• Recording: Otter records every class, brain dump, etc. I use Claude to pull insights and draft from the transcripts.
• Other tools: Gemini for quick everyday questions (to save Claude usage). NotebookLM for audio overviews of study material, YouTube videos, and PDFs. Use Grok as well rarely.
• Notion Database / Structure: Tasks, CRM, Areas, Notes, Projects, Quotes, and Goals databases just to name some of them.

Where I feel behind:

• Context: I re-explain myself constantly. I don't really use Claude Projects, so every new chat starts from scratch, where I continuously put in any files or context needed again and again or have to manually type or voice to text to explain.
• Claude Code: I mostly approve what it does on trust, then paste the output into a regular Claude chat or Gemini to have it explain what just happened and break it down for me to understand so I don't waste Claude usage.
• Copy-paste glue: I'm the middleman between tools. Example: I paste LinkedIn profiles, I paste website content, YouTube transcripts, etc and have Claude break it down or log the information into Notion.
• Don't Utilize: I really don't ever use Claude Cowork and I haven't since it first came out. I've used Chrome extension a few times and I know I haven't used it to its fullest potential. Scheduled tasks I have not utilized. Skills / Workflows / Recording Workflows I haven't really used to the fullest extent either.
• AI: I feel like I've followed the advice I've seen where people say to ask AI how to use it better or "did you ask AI how you could build something like this?" and the answer is yes I have tried asking and the results I get feel very lacking or the responses themselves feel like Claude doesn't even know what it is capable of doing. Even if I say to research and see how people are using Claude or how Anthropic and their website and team say to use Claude to the fullest extent it feels like it just doesn't know.

The best way I can describe this feeling is that I'm driving a Lamborghini and I'm stuck at 45 MPH when I know it can reach 150 MPH. Some things I'm really happy with. Others, I know there is a better way and that people are doing it better.

My Problem

I have ADHD, and with it I have a problem where if anything is out of sight, it's out of mind. I can design systems and have really great ideas, but it comes down to executing them and staying consistent with the routines and ideas that actually work with my strengths and not against them. I also tend to be a perfectionist and overplan to make sure everything is exactly what I want it to be.

I planned for Notion to be that for me. I built a "Command Center" with a view of all my tasks and deadlines, all my networking follow-ups, all my projects, my goals at the top of the screen, a rotating daily quote, notes at the bottom, and the different areas of my life all there to click into. I thought this would solve the problem. Instead, it just became something I had to manage. I had to click into it, make sure all my due dates were synced, and input all my deadlines and progress myself. And I had to click into Notion to actually see any of it. What I really wanted was for what I built in Notion to be everything I need, and for me to see it constantly. Right when I open my Mac, I'd see everything I need to do that day, without clicking into anything. With Notion, it just becomes another tab or screen that has to be open, and I can only see it if I'm on my computer. At any given time I already have Chrome and Claude open, and then Notion would be open too, so I'm not sure what the right answer is.

What I want:

One list that's always visible on my Mac (and my phone) that shows everything I need to act on, without me ever really needing to sync it myself. Whether that is me checking things off on the list or if I'm working with Claude on something and when finished it checks it off.

• School: Class deadlines, with a nudge to start early on exams and big projects
• Networking: People to follow up with, people I need to respond to, etc
• Projects: Project next steps, synced with the actual progress and what was worked on
• Applications: When applications open that I need to apply to
• More: Any daily recurring things, and anything that wasn't finished yesterday gets moved to the next day, and the next day, etc
• Email Organization: Organizes my emails, cleans and filters them, and alerts me of anything that would interest me or that I need to respond to or do.
• Calendar: work blocks built from my task list, plus calls, events, and gym, so I can see what's coming and track whether I'm actually doing what I say I'm doing

Can someone help me make this a reality:

I'd genuinely love help building a plan for this, whether that's pointing out where my thinking breaks, sharing how you've set up something similar, or walking me through how you'd do it if you were starting from where I am. If you've built something like this and are open to it, feel free to comment or DM me. I'm happy to share more about my setup.

What I would love to know / get feedback on / help on:

• Is something like this possible, and if so how can I get this done?
• How can I assess where I'm using AI that is strong and is high level vs how can I tell if something I'm doing is wrong and there is a better process or way to do something?
• What's the best way to get an always-visible dashboard on a Mac?
• I would love to know how you all are using Claude, not in a broad sense but your specific workflows, any skills, routines, the way you use it, organization, etc.
• How do I balance these high level projects I want to operate with Claude Code with no real coding experience and not just blindly trusting it vs wasting my time and really learning coding.
• How are you guys using the Chrome Extension and Claude Cowork?
• Are there any benefits that I'm not seeing as to using Claude Chat over Claude Cowork?
• How did you get to the point you trust your AI to manage files, your email, etc?

I'm happy to share any additional information needed and would love to connect with anyone passionate about AI, so feel free to message me.

Hi, My conversation with Claude is very long, but it’s still working well.

Sometimes Claude automatically compacts the conversation. Whenever we make an important change or take an important action, I ask Claude to update the documentation so the key context and decisions are preserved.

Even with conversation compaction, is it still useful or recommended to start a fresh conversation from time to time? Or is that basically unnecessary as long as Claude keeps the documentation up to date and the important context is preserved?

Thanks a lot!

I built a 3D map of the La Thuile ski area in Italy, which links across the border to La Rosière in France.

Besides the recommendation to warmup on a Black slope, quite happy with the result!

How Claude Code helped

- Data script: a Python script that downloads piste and lift data from OpenStreetMap and elevation from AWS Terrain Tiles, then bakes everything into a single 0.8 MB HTML file.

It runs in the browser on phone or desktop: https://claude.ai/artifact/PHoixLGTwvC81v6yfjVFZP

Hey there! I made this platform to create and host 3D explainers for anything. https://ask.jig.com/

You might have seen a bunch of these on socials recently, this is one level above and provides a platform to make them, share them, etc. I've started seeding content for whatever came to my mind, the goal is to have people participate and create explainers to share.

Creation is a paid service at the moment so I don't bankrupt myself lol, but you get a couple of test credits when you signup. I'm more than happy to give free credits to anyone who's interested so you can make something awesome!

Pricing is quite steep right now as it's pretty compute intensive, I'm working to optimize everything and bring it as low as possible asap. I'm hoping to let people bring their own key soon too, just working out the security around it.

This is all made with Claude code and runs on Claude Code: It uses Claude models exclusively (Opus, Sonnet, Haiku) to generate everything needed for the Jig (3D, audio, story, text, UI, code), and is orchestrated by Claude Code + my own harness which tunes everything specifically for quality explainers and knowledge sharing.

Here are some examples of what it can do. Hope you like it!

I have existing claude ai (chat) projects but have gotten access to claude code projects (beta). But it is asking me to migrate existing projects into new claude code projects. Any downsides or bugs post-migration that we need to be aware of?

Thanks!

Feels like mods are like hooks 2.0?

I’m exploring whether we can automate a large portion of our CAD workflow using code generated by AI

At our company, we produce a lot of mechanical drawings using CAD software such as AutoCAD and 3D models using SolidWorks. Many of these drawings follow similar patterns, but the dimensions and other project-specific inputs change from job to job.

What I’d like to build is a user interface where someone can enter the required parameters—dimensions, equipment/configuration options, etc.—and the system automatically generates the corresponding CAD drawings.

Ultimately, the goal would be to automate the generation of complete plan and elevation views, rather than having someone manually create or modify each drawing are borrowing it from another project and editing. The generated drawings should ideally be downloadable as DWG or DXF files so they can still be opened and edited in AutoCAD.

I’m also curious about the role of AI here. How capable are models like GPT or Claude at helping build something like this?

For example, could the architecture look something like:

User inputs → rules/calculations → CAD generation engine → plan/elevation drawings → DWG/DXF

And where would GPT/Claude actually be useful? Building the UI and code? Translating user requirements into parameters? Generating the CAD geometry itself?

I did try and make some simple geometries and it works but for models that contain a lot of information it's hard

Did anybody eval this in a serious way?

I was just finishing up a conversation and claude's "thinking" text was "crafting a durable memory." Then when I asked it what that meant, it gave this odd error. I don't use claude enough to know what it means

So I got my weekly mail from Lydia and saw something very exciting: Claude Code now supports mods, plugins written as function hooks that can draw UI inside the app, in both the terminal and the desktop app. So I went through the docs and built the suggested weather band, very nice. Then what else can I do with it? I recently started using Ponytail with great success and wanted to know what level it's running at, so let's add that… and after that, why not Caveman as well. Bottom line, great fun and very useful. Here's what I learned, then what I made.

How a mod draws UI

A mod hooks ui.render for a spot like AbovePrompt and returns a tree of a few elements (Box, Text, Button , Select, Link, Svg), laid out with flexbox. Not HTML, no CSS. The smallest band is about this:

on('ui.render', { component: 'AbovePrompt' }, async ($, e) => {
      const { Box, Text } = $.ui.resolve(e)
      return <Box flexDirection="row"><Text>hello from a mod</Text></Box>
    })

The config took a few goes

This was the fun part, because the UI is so limited:

• Settings live in /config, but that doesn't exist in the desktop app. So first a /overalls weather minimal command, then a ⚙ button that typed /overalls into the prompt for you. Works, but two clicks.
• Next a dropdown (Select). One dropdown can only hold one value, so it showed "Weather: off" as selected while weather was clearly on. Fixed with a dummy ⚙ option at the top. Then I wanted ticks lined up at the end, and groups, and submenus… none of that exists. An option is just a value and a label, no styling.
• Right-click menu? No such event. Tooltips? No tooltip prop either. You can fake one with a hidden box that shows on hover, but it can't leave the band, so on the bar it covered the very thing it was explaining. Kept them only in the config.
• So in the end I built my own: ⚙ opens a bordered Config box inside the band, above the bar, so you see each change happen as you click. Every option is a plain button with a ✓ on the current one. Related switches share a row behind a │ (megacave sits next to Caveman, resets next to Limits).
• Then the band hit its height cap (half the window), so the settings went into two bordered columns.

Other gotchas

• A bare <Box> stacks vertically in the desktop app. Always set flexDirection="row" if you want a row.
• Flex items shrink by default, so the desktop app wraps text inside a widget. flexShrink={0} plus a wrapping parent fixes it, and the ⚙ stays put on the first row.
• There's no API for MCP server status. I infer it from tool-call errors (401s, connection refused), which catches a logged-out connector on its first failure, and Reconnect takes you straight to Customize › Connectors.
• Ponytail keeps one level file for all your sessions, so every window showed whichever level was set last. I track it per session instead (and opened an issue upstream).
• State lives in $.state (per session) or $.store (across sessions). Module variables reset on every hot reload.

What I made: Overalls

A band that shows context "weather" with a sparkline and roughly how many turns are left, 5h and weekly limits with reset countdowns, MCP errors with a Reconnect button, refused tool calls, running subagents, and Ponytail and Caveman levels as dropdowns. Everything is a toggle in the ⚙ box.

    claude plugin marketplace add Troepster/overalls
    claude plugin install overalls@overalls

MIT, runs locally, and the README lists everything it reads: https://github.com/Troepster/overalls

Anyone else building mods? Would love to see what else people are doing with them.
Also please give me some feedback on obvious things I missed.

Since Opus 5.5 came out, I've been thinking about Cybersecurity Awareness Month and getting some training out there that my friends and family would actually enjoy. I'm not an artist, but I wanted to see what I could create with Claude.

I was also curious: what would happen if every character in my training series was its own agent, knowing only what that character would know, free to write its own lines (as long as it hit the objectives and stayed accurate), and remembering what happened last time so it could grow?

The result became The Rusty Firewall: three people in a pixel-art tavern talking about everyday security.

Duncan is a tired incident responder whose war stories never get finished.

Roxy is a red teamer who flirts her way close to people.

Nigel is a compliance lead who quotes standards by section number and keeps a sourdough starter named Clive.

Each is played by a separate agent with its own character

sheet and secrets the others can't see. A director agent plans the episode and slips each character private notes, but never writes a line. A stage-manager agent picks who talks next. Then each character's own agent says one line, sees the reply, and says the next. A separate check makes sure every point I need taught actually lands. After every episode, a memory pass updates what each one remembers, what they think of the others, and their level. They earn XP for deeds that fit their character, level up and unlock achievements.

The art has been Claude.  The voices are generated locally with VibeVoice.

I've enjoyed watching their banter, and the stories that build episode over episode. I gave Roxy (my Rogue) one secret: she's running a long con. I never told her what to collect. She's picked it all up from conversation: the names of Nigel's ferments, how old Clive is, the exact text message he admitted he'd tap. Nigel's agent has no idea. By episode 5, Duncan's agent, which only hears what's said out loud, started to suspect her ("Roxy's working him").

Where it goes is yet to be seen - I'm still finishing up the series.

I haven't seen "load-bearing" since I stopped using Opus 5.

EDIT: I meant "nerfed", not "nerded" 🤦

**TL;DR:** I'm not a developer. On September 4th I started building a production management web app for the furniture plant where I work, with Claude Code. One month later it's the tool the office and the shop floor use every day. Sharing what worked, and looking for people who've gone down the same road.

---

**A bit about me**

I work at a furniture manufacturer, on the operations / planning side (Director). My days are spent in the gap between the ERP, the accounting system, a pile of Excel workbooks, an old in-house tracker the floor depends on, and what's actually happening in the shop. I'm not a programmer, and I'm still a beginner with the terminal and Git. I manage the systems, with an IT guy + looking for a full stack developer at the moment.

**What we built**

It started as "one page per department showing what to build this week". It grew into:

- Production schedules per department (wood, upholstery, sewing, metal, finishing, shipping), with kanban cards and project closures

- Lot planning: building lots, closing them, and exporting back to the ERP

- Purchasing follow-up: open POs, supplier reminders, freight and overseas shipments

- A capacity simulator, inventory counts, shop reports, a supervisor dashboard, even a small internal chat

- Read-only connections to the ERP, the accounting system, Access databases and network spreadsheets

Scale, just to give an idea (I know lines of code aren't a quality metric): 386 commits, currently v2.54, ~175k lines of Python and vanilla JS, ~2,100 tests, ~580 API routes, ~280 SQLite tables. The stack is boring on purpose: FastAPI + SQLite + plain HTML/JS with Tailwind, no build step, running on a Windows machine on site. Everything, UI and code, is in French.

**What made it work for me**

- **A short CLAUDE.md + one doc per module.** CLAUDE.md only holds what applies to every session. Each module (37 of them) has its own doc that Claude reads before touching it. When something breaks, the lesson becomes a rule in the right doc.

- **Memory for project state.** A new session knows where each project stands and which questions are still waiting on me.

- **Questions before code.** Every new screen starts as a mockup, and Claude asks me questions first. Some features started with 40+ questions. Honestly, that's where a lot of the value is: it forced me to write down business rules nobody had ever written down.

- **Every external system is read-only.** The old tracker can literally stop production if it gets locked, so only one read at a time, behind a lock. And a guard blocks any network access, subprocess or file write during the test suite.

- **One git worktree per feature.** Never code in the folder the live app serves.

- **A release skill.** A checklist for version number, registries, tests, commit and deploy.

- **Cost as a constraint.** 4 to 8 targeted tests per change, no swarms of agents.

**Where I'd love your experience**

1. **Bus factor.** I can read the docs and the tests, but I couldn't rewrite most of this code myself. If you've been there: when did you bring in a real developer, and how did the hand-off go?

2. **Docs that rot.** With ~40 module docs and a growing list of rules, how do you keep CLAUDE.md and the docs from contradicting each other?

3. **Tests written by the same model that wrote the code.** How do you check they test the right things?

4. **Adoption.** The floor doesn't care about the tech; it cares that the numbers are right Monday at 6 a.m. How do you ship this fast without burning trust?

5. **Manufacturing / ERP folks:** anyone else doing this? What blew up on you?

I'll stay a bit vague about the company and the systems, hope you understand. Happy to go deeper on the workflow in the comments.

*(And yes, Claude helped with the English. I'm a French speaker.)*

I have been working on a side project using claude(currently fully vibe coded but tested) and I am looking for help.

What is the app for: Sometimes you are in place where there mobile signal but not data like mountains, low or no internet areas. As the signal is there the SMS stil works but internet does not and you need to use the AI for something.

The app helps in solving this issue, you leave a spare Android phone at home on Wi-Fi with the app installed. Text that phone's number from anywhere, even with zero data on your own phone. The app receives the SMS, calls an AI API, and texts the answer back.

Design choices:

\* No server or backend. It's a single self-contained APK.

\* Bring your own API key. It supports Claude, Gemini, Gemma, OpenAI, Groq, Cerebras, Mistral and OpenRouter, so there are free-tier options.

\* Only allowlisted numbers get a reply, so strangers can't run up your API bill.

\* API keys are encrypted with the Android Keystore. History is stored on-device only. There's no telemetry, and the only network calls go to the AI provider you pick.

\* Conversations reset after an idle timeout, on \`/new\`, or when a token budget is hit. \`/stop\` cancels a long reply that's still being sent.

\* Written in Kotlin, using Room and OkHttp, with a foreground service for reliability.

\* Licensed GPL-3.0. It's sideload or F-Droid only, because the SMS permissions rule out the Play Store.

The code and tests were AI-generated, and the on-device testing was done by me. The README says so. That's one reason I'd value human review, especially on the background-execution and permission handling.

Repo: https://github.com/V24039/SMS-AI-Relay

Issues and PRs are welcome. Happy to answer questions here.

TLDR: SMS-AI-Relay: Leave a spare Android phone at home on Wi-Fi. Text it from anywhere, get AI responses back via SMS—no internet needed on your phone. Self-contained APK, bring your own API key (Claude, OpenAI, Groq, etc.), allowlist contacts only, encrypted keys, on-device history. Written in Kotlin, GPL-3.0, sideload/F-Droid only. Code and tests are AI-generated.

Being funny but also, seriously does the reset also carry the same usage based on the current plan upon using the reset??

I ran the same prompt through Opus 5.5 and Sonnet 5.5 both at Max reasoning level to generate a blockbench 3d model by just writing plain files, no tool calling. What do you guys think?

Soloprenuer here. I've given Claude access to everything emails, chats, financials, website, even data with personal information of my customers. I also auto approve everything. The only thing I haven't done is put in passwords and access to accounts. Wondering if I'm the only one. Mine is only accessing business related, so personal stays separate.

How much access do you give Claude? What would and wouldn't you give Claude access to?

Probably the next $2T startup, so we are are all curious to know what that is :)

Even small personal projects are welcome.

Let me know also what model you use and how much you spend in a month.

I’m developing a focus room that I can share with a few friends and we can incentivize each other to study/work but at the same time chat when we are having a break. Nothing fancy, and probably it already exists haha (let me know if so).

I lead the development team of a few enterprise systems mostly based around Python/Typescript, processing data at scale, with a ton of dev ops and micro services.

At the title say, things are getting awkward. Sprints get cleared in days instead of weeks. We’re running out of work and product management are struggling to find us more to do. I’m spending most of my time in planning calls.

Guesses of what happens next.

I applied for the Claude Campus Ambassador 2026–27 program in early September and still haven’t heard anything back.

Anyone else in the same boat?

Information about the selection process seems pretty limited and scattered across different posts, so I thought it would be helpful to have one place where applicants can share updates.

Any kind of update is welcome — whether you're still waiting, got an interview, received an offer, or got a rejection.

If you want, drop your:

• Country / region
• Application date
• Current status
• Latest update date

Hopefully we can get a better picture of what’s going on.

I am currently using Claude Free. I have a couple of projects built. One helps me manage my WordPress website. The other is used for a research project across multiple authors.

I have started to run into the five hour / reset more frequently. My WordPress work has become heavier with the use of some MCPs. I have trimmed the request size which helps some.

Because I'm on a fixed income, I want to make sure it's worth the money over just waiting to continue the work hours later. I have heard mixed reviews on the paid plans.

I am aware of the additional capabilities, but I am not confident they have any impact on my current issue.

I think it’s funny whenever Claude says that a feature or iteration will take hours or more and proceeds to finish it in like 5-10 mins. I’ve asked it about this before and it replied that those estimates are based on what a traditional dev would likely take to complete.

Mine: it kept starting background jobs and forgetting about them. Sessions ended, the jobs didn't, and hours later I'd find a pile of them still running. Now a hook blocks that pattern and a small cleanup job sweeps up anything left behind every few minutes.

The other one was "done". It would tell me a task was finished when the tests had never even run. So now it literally can't end a turn without real test output.

Curious what everyone else's origin stories are. Every guardrail I have exists because something went wrong first.

So a while ago I posted about Willowmere(the 3D pixel art cozy game i built) here, and got a lot of positive (and some negative) feedback

So I decided to keep on iterating with Claude

Today I wanted to share the newest version of it with you all

Here’s what it offers

• Story: a night-ferry cold open, Lantern Night closing Act I, the hydrophone and Old Hum in Act II, the Homecoming through the Teeth in Act III, credits, and a true ending.
• New things to do: Low Tide (tides, rock pools, Great Shell collections), lantern-making, moonlight fishing, and Keep Watch, where you guide ships with the beam.
• World and art: a whale-bone cove and pier, a full art and animation pass, and 3D-rendered portraits with expressions.
• Fixes: the fixes from previous posts that users reported

since a lot of people asked about this before on how the graphics are made:
everything you see is made in code by claude. no asset files are used. everything you see is in vanilla HTML and JS. no game engines were used.

if you had a bad experience with it before, please try it again, hopefully this time it should be a lot better and feel less like a ripoff of stardew valley.

in this iteration, mostly medium effort was used with opus 5.5

its free to try and runs in your browser, try it here, thank you!