Context is king, so collect it yourself
An agent only knows what you tell it. Gather the context about your project yourself: who you talked to, what you decided, what you tried. Save every plan in your project folder so you can point back to it later. Put an AGENTS.md in that folder that says what you build, for whom and what you decided. Most coding agents read it. If your tool still wants its own file, such as CLAUDE.md, let that file point to AGENTS.md. When two files disagree, the agent quotes both, so keep one source for each fact.
Talk first, build second
Record your voice for ten minutes to an hour and tell the AI everything about the idea: who it is for, what it does, what it never does. Ask for a product requirements document (PRD), give the AI time to think, read the plan, then let it build. A local model such as Whisper or Parakeet turns your voice into text on your own laptop. Ask permission before you record anyone else.
Start from a product vision, then write user stories
Before you build, answer five questions. Who is it for? What pains, needs and wishes do they have? What product, with which features, answers that? What are your business goals, such as how many users you want and how you measure that? And what is your vision statement? Work from those answers and turn them into user stories. It saves you a lot of rework.
Plan first, then design, then build
Follow the traditional flow, with an agent in every role. First the strategist and project manager make the plan. Then the UX designer draws it and you iterate on the design. Only then do you build. That order gives far better prototypes than building in one go. Draw your plan in black-and-white wireframes in an agent canvas such as Paper or Pen. Start with the content: write the texts and get them right, and check the usability, before you think about colour.
Let your agent borrow UX patterns from Mobbin
AI designs much better when it can borrow UX patterns from other sites. Mobbin has more than 600,000 screens and 300,000 flows from real apps and websites. Browse them, pick the patterns you like and show them to your agent.
Chain your steps with an arrow
Type -> between the steps of a task and the agent reads them in order: record the problem -> write the PRD -> build the first screen -> test it with someone. Your prompt stays short and you can swap one step without rewriting the rest.
Turn what you know into skills
A skill is knowledge plus a way of working that you can call. Feed Claude the ideas of a thinker you trust: your own notes, public transcripts of their talks and podcasts, a summary of their book, or the book itself when you have the rights or it is in the public domain. Ask Claude to make a skill of it, and let two skills review each other's work.
Build a company brain that remembers
A company brain remembers the decisions in your business, your CRM and your plans, in plain markdown that any agent can read. It is the most important piece of my setup. Start from the empty company-brain template and make it your own.
Steer your agents from Company OS
Company OS sits on top of the brain, and it is a different thing. You give your agents commands and press the button yourself, so you always know what is going on. Some people automate their agents completely. I prefer a human in the loop: I read the plan, check the preview, let a second model review the work and steer in Claude Code in the terminal. Both projects are open source.
Use a terminal, then keep talking
I run Claude Code in Ghostty and use herdr to keep every agent in its own pane (herdr in about 6 minutes). Everything lives in one place, so you can keep talking, one idea after another. I talked this page together the same way. You can start without a terminal. The Claude app does the same work, only slower.
Host on Cloudflare and let your agent run it
I host my own work on Cloudflare and I recommend it to students. Install the new Cloudflare CLI (npm install --global cf, still in beta), sign in, and your coding agent can create, deploy and manage your hosting when you ask in plain language. In my experience it costs a lot less than Vercel, Netlify or Supabase. bunny.net is a good alternative if you want your hosting inside the EU. This site runs there, behind my Cloudflare domain.
Copy a brand from any website
When the branding of an existing organisation has to be perfect, take it from their own website. Open the site, press F12 and go to the Network tab. Filter on Font, Img and Media to see every font, image and video the page loads. Right-click in the list, choose Copy and then Copy all listed URLs, and paste those URLs into Claude together with the DESIGN.md standard and ask for a DESIGN.md of that style. Every later prompt can start from that file. Only publish assets you have the right to use.
Show it to a real person this week
Create is about evidence. Put your prototype in front of three people from your target group and write down what they do first, not what they say. Ask them to think out loud while they use it and record that, with their permission. It gives you a lot of feedback.
