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Workflows & Tips

Practical, actionable tips for devs who code with AI every day — prompts, configs, conventions.

Practical, actionable tips from developers who code with AI every day — CLAUDE.md conventions, prompt patterns, MCP server recipes, and the under-documented workflows that actually change how you ship. The emphasis is on can-use-Monday-morning, not theory.

199 stories · last 90 days

How CLAUDE.md actually works

A developer guide details how Claude Code reads CLAUDE.md files hierarchically — from project root and subdirectories — and argues that effective files should function as behavioral specifications rather than README-style descriptions, using negative rules and separating facts from constraints.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-05-09

Using Claude Code: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of HTML

Thariq Shihipar, an engineer on Anthropic's Claude Code team, published a case for requesting HTML rather than Markdown as output from Claude, noting HTML enables inline SVG diagrams, interactive widgets, and in-page navigation. Simon Willison tested the approach by piping a Linux privilege-escal...

Simon Willison · 2026-05-09

Agent pull requests are everywhere. Here’s how to review them.

A January 2026 study found agent-generated code introduces more redundancy and technical debt than human-written code, while reviewers report feeling more confident approving it. GitHub reports Copilot code review has processed over 60 million reviews, growing 10x in under a year, with agents now...

GitHub Blog · 2026-05-08

How I Stopped Burning Through My Claude Code Quota by Noon

Anthropic's Claude Code uses prefix caching that can reduce token costs by up to 10x, but actions like switching models mid-session, modifying tool configurations, or opening new sessions invalidate the cache and trigger full-price recalculation. Keeping sessions long and tool definitions stable ...

Dev.to - AI · 2026-05-06

I Just Launched a Newsletter. Here's the First Issue.

Developer Alex Rogov launched "AI Architecture Weekly," a free weekly Substack newsletter targeting senior developers using AI tools. The first issue covers five common configuration mistakes in CLAUDE.md files, including treating the file as a prompt and omitting project-specific context.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-05-04

30 Days of Daily Automation. The Bot Improved the Wrong Pages.

A developer running a 30-day daily automation using Claude to improve calculator pages found that 8 of 28 improved pages had no Google Search Console presence, and all early-April pages recorded zero clicks. Meanwhile, the site's highest-impression page — 880 impressions in 28 days at position 57...

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-05-03

I Built an AI-Powered Indian Election Guide — Here's How

A student developer built VoteGuide AI, a conversational assistant for Indian voters that uses the Groq API with LLaMA 3.3 70B to answer election questions, check voter eligibility, and run voting simulations. The app, built with React 18 and deployed on Vercel, supports Hindi and role-based resp...

Dev.to - AI · 2026-05-02

10 CLAUDE.md Rules Every Python Developer Needs in 2026

A Dev.to post outlines 10 recommended rules for CLAUDE.md configuration files in Python repositories, covering practices such as mandatory type hints, lockfile management with `uv`, and structured error handling to guide AI coding tools like Claude Code toward project-specific conventions.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-05-01

How to Build a Multimodal AI Chatbot with Claude 3.5 and React 19

A Dev.to tutorial outlines steps for building a multimodal chatbot using Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet API and React 19, with Vite as the build tool and react-dropzone for image input handling. The guide covers API client setup, environment variable configuration, and component construction using...

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-05-01

Can Claude Skills Save Us From The Smartphone?

A developer built Claude Skills scripts called "tomorrow" and "today" that aggregate Google Calendar, email, Slack, and iMessage data into prioritized daily briefings, replacing manual checks across six separate apps.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-05-01

Using Gemini with OpenClaw: Setup Guide + Real Use Cases

OpenClaw, an AI agent platform for developer automation, supports Google's Gemini models as an LLM backend, with setup requiring an API key from Google AI Studio. The integration enables agents to process large codebases, multimodal artifacts such as images and video, and supports a free developm...

Dev.to - AI · 2026-05-01

How to Fix AI Workflows That Break Because of Context Window Limits

LLMs have fixed context windows that cause "lost in the middle" failures, where information buried in large prompts is ignored and hallucinations increase as memory fills. Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) is proposed as a fix, decoupling the model from its data source rather than relying on l...

Dev.to - AI · 2026-04-30

How to Actually Use Claude Design

Anthropic launched Claude Design, a research preview tool that converts text prompts into interactive prototypes, landing pages, slide decks, and internal tool mockups. It is powered by Claude Opus 4.7, integrates with Claude Code for developer handoff, and is available on Pro, Max, Team, and Ent...

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-30

🐢 and 🐇 in My Claude Code Status Line

A developer published a bash script that customizes the Claude Code status line to display token usage pace using tortoise and hare emojis, where the tortoise marks expected consumption at the current time in the 5-hour window and the hare marks actual usage.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-30

How CLAUDE.md Rules Transform Your AI Coding Workflow

CLAUDE.md is a markdown file placed in a project repository that Claude Code reads automatically at the start of each session, applying persistent, version-controlled instructions to every user on the team. The file supports hierarchical scoping, allowing different rules for different subdirector...

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-29

Building 10 AI agents in pure Python (no LangChain, no SaaS, no BS)

A developer built 10 single-purpose AI automation agents in pure Python, each 15-30 lines of core logic, after abandoning LangChain, LangGraph, CrewAI, and Zapier. The agents run on macOS via launchd using a fetch-reason-push pipeline with a three-tier AI fallback: Claude API, Ollama local, or ra...

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-29

40 Days Training on RAG

A developer published Day 1 of a 40-day tutorial series on Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), covering foundational concepts including LLMs, model parameters, temperature settings, hallucination, and vector database storage for private documents.

Dev.to - AI · 2026-04-29

Brighten your day in 3 CLAUDE.md lines

A developer shared a three-line CLAUDE.md configuration snippet that instructs Claude Code to address the user as "Captain," adopt a pirate persona, and open each session with a greeting and joke.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-29

After Knowledge, Discipline

A developer published their Claude Code workflow, which uses structured markdown files — including a CLAUDE.md at the repo root and organized docs folders — to guide AI-assisted development. The setup, totaling roughly 150KB of plain text, is publicly available at github.com/ku5ic/dotfiles/tree/m...

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-28

Structured Data Extraction from PDFs: Regex vs Template Matching vs AI

Three approaches to PDF invoice data extraction — regex parsing, template matching, and AI-based extraction — differ in maintenance burden and flexibility. Regex works for fixed formats but requires code changes per vendor; template matching uses coordinate anchors; AI methods handle varied layou...

Dev.to - AI · 2026-04-26

How I stopped Claude Code from force-pushing to main

A developer found that Claude Code ignored a `CLAUDE.md` rule against force-pushing to a shared Git repository during a long session. Using Claude Code's PreToolUse hook system, which intercepts tool calls before execution, the developer implemented a script to block `git push --force` commands a...

Dev.to - AI · 2026-04-24

Production Patterns for Claude API in Next.js Apps

A developer published production patterns for integrating Anthropic's Claude API into Next.js apps, drawn from building two AI SaaS products: OTONAMI, a music pitch-matching platform, and STYLE SYNC, a dance costume styling service. Key recommendations include routing requests across three Claude...

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-24

Working with Codex

OpenAI published a guide for its Codex coding agent covering workspace setup, thread and project creation, file management, and task completion workflows.

OpenAI Blog · 2026-04-24

How to Save Tokens and Manage Usage Limits in Claude

A Dev.to guide outlines nine methods for reducing token consumption when using Claude, including writing shorter prompts, starting new conversations per topic, and requesting targeted edits rather than full rewrites. It also notes Claude's three usage tiers: free, Pro, and pay-per-token API access.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-24

AI-Powered Backend Development: A Complete Guide

According to 2025 data cited in the article, approximately 41% of code is now AI-generated, as tools such as Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, and Windsurf automate tasks including API scaffolding, database optimization, and test generation in backend development workflows.

Dev.to - AI · 2026-04-24

Top 10 uses for Codex at work

OpenAI published a guide outlining 10 workplace use cases for Codex, its AI-based automation tool, covering task automation, file handling, and workflow integration across business tools.

OpenAI Blog · 2026-04-24

Top Marketing Skills For Claude Code, OpenClaw & Hermes

A developer at Composio compiled nine marketing automation workflows for AI agent tools including Claude Code and OpenClaw, covering areas such as SEO optimization, paid ads auditing, content generation, and social media scheduling. The workflows connect to third-party services including Google S...

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-24

How to Integrate Claude with n8n to Build AI Workflows

A developer guide describes how to connect Claude to n8n workflow automation using n8n's HTTP Request node pointed at Anthropic's API endpoint (api.anthropic.com/v1/messages), enabling AI-driven interpretation within automated workflows. The tutorial uses claude-3-sonnet-20240229 and covers webho...

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-23

How to Deploy Your AI-Coded Internal App

AI coding tools like Claude Code and Cursor have lowered the barrier to building internal apps, but deploying them to production still requires infrastructure setup including authentication, database provisioning, permissions, and audit logging that most non-developers cannot complete independently.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-23

Using Git Commits as Claude Code's Memory

A developer published a workflow for managing Claude Code's context window by using Git commit messages as persistent session memory, pairing each task with a dedicated Git worktree and structured commit bodies capturing decisions, attempted approaches, and next steps.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-21

5 Claude Code Workflows I Use Every Day (For the Boring 80%)

A developer outlined five workflows for using Claude Code: grepping before edits, writing failing tests before fixes, requiring plain-English explanations before code generation, reading personal markdown notes for context, and enforcing single-step checkpoints on multi-part tasks.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-20

Track Multiple AI Agents state

A developer guide outlines methods for monitoring multiple concurrent AI coding agents across tools like Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex, which each use different event models. Approaches range from manual terminal watching to zsh shell hooks and Claude Code's built-in hooks system for triggering ...

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-20

Claude Token Counter with Model Comparisons!

A technical article examines tokenization mechanics across Anthropic's Claude 3 model variants, including Opus, Sonnet, and Haiku, covering token counting methods, context window limits of up to 200,000 tokens, and cost estimation using Anthropic's official tokenizers library.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-20

Claude system prompts as a git timeline

Simon Willison used Claude Code to convert Anthropic's publicly published Claude system prompt release notes into a git repository, with separate files per model and fabricated commit dates to enable diff-style browsing on GitHub. He used the resulting timeline to document changes between the Cla...

Simon Willison · 2026-04-19

AI to Your Flutter App: Claude, Gemini & On-Device ML

A developer guide covers integrating three AI options into Flutter apps: Anthropic's Claude API (Sonnet 4.6) with Dio 5.9, Google's Gemini 2.5 Flash via the firebase_ai 3.9 SDK, and TFLite 0.10 for on-device inference. The guide includes streaming responses, a chat screen implementation, and a Ri...

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-18

Building an emoji list generator with the GitHub Copilot CLI

GitHub's team built a CLI tool called Emoji List Generator during a weekly livestream, using the GitHub Copilot SDK with Claude Sonnet 4.6, the `@opentui/core` terminal UI library, and `clipboardy` to convert text bullet points into emoji-prefixed lists and copy the result to the clipboard.

GitHub Blog · 2026-04-18

Profling Claude Converstaions

A developer published an article on Dev.to describing methods for profiling Claude AI conversations, though specific tools or findings were not recoverable from the available content.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-17

10 Claude Code commands that actually changed how I ship

Claude Code includes a slash command system that lets developers save reusable prompts as custom commands stored in project or user directories. The author documented 10 commands designed to automate repetitive coding tasks like code reviews, component scaffolding, and commit messages.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-16

Build a personal organization command center with GitHub Copilot CLI

GitHub staff engineer Brittany Ellich built a personal organization command center application using GitHub Copilot CLI to consolidate scattered work across multiple apps into a single interface, completing the initial version in one day through AI-assisted development with planning and implement...

GitHub Blog · 2026-04-16

datasette.io news preview

Simon Willison built a preview tool for the datasette.io website's news section, which is maintained in a YAML file, using Claude AI to generate a UI that validates syntax and shows rendered output.

Simon Willison · 2026-04-16

My AI-Assisted workflow

A developer described a workflow that uses AI to generate product requirements and issues from detailed plans, emphasizing upfront thinking and explicit specification over rapid implementation to maintain code clarity and maintainability.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-15

Audité las webs de 5 marcas españolas con Claude — esto encontré

A developer used Claude AI with SiteAudit MCP to audit five major Spanish websites and identified technical issues including slow load times at El Corte Inglés (LCP 4.2s), missing security headers at Banco Santander, render-blocking resources at El País, accessibility gaps at Zara, and mixed resu...

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-15

OpenClaw Background Tasks Guide: Flows, Detached Runs,...

OpenClaw 3.31 restructured background task management with a shared SQLite-backed ledger and unified control model for ACP, subagent, cron, and CLI runs. The update adds task flow commands (list, show, cancel) to improve visibility and recovery of detached work running outside immediate chat turns.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-14

5 Advanced OpenClaw Skills That Change How Your Agent Works

OpenClaw, an AI agent platform, offers specialized skills in its Bazaar directory that enable agents to delegate tasks to sub-agents and run autonomous scheduled workflows. Delegation skills route work to specialist sub-agents with task-specific capabilities, while scheduling skills enable agents...

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-14

Let Your AI Agent Forget on Purpose

Anthropic added a forget_messages tool that allows AI agents to remove reference file content from conversation history after extracting needed information, reducing redundant input tokens and API costs while maintaining placeholders for potential re-reading.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-13

Building a Home Personal Assistant with Claude Managed Agents

A developer built a household task management assistant using Claude Managed Agents, integrating it with Slack for task triggers and reminders; the system uses Lambda and DynamoDB for state management, with note-taking and daily reminder features currently working and Google Calendar integration ...

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-13

Build LLM Guardrails in 3 Lines of Python (No API Key, No Cloud)

Semantix-ai, a Python library, performs local LLM output validation using intent-based checks in approximately 15 milliseconds without requiring API keys or external services. The tool uses a decorator pattern to flag outputs violating policies such as PII disclosure or medical advice.

Dev.to - AI · 2026-04-13

I Gamified My Claude Code Terminal With Evolving Pixel Pets

A developer released tokburn, a Claude Code status line extension that displays rate limits and token usage while featuring animated pixel pet companions that evolve based on session activity. The tool achieved 2.1k npm downloads in its first week and requires no external dependencies.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-13

Claude Sets Itself Up — Six Terms Every Small Business Should Know

Claude Code can automate small business workflows through six configuration features: CLAUDE.md for business profiles, Skills for recurring tasks, Hooks, Subagents, MEMORY.md, and MCP integrations. The system allows non-technical business owners to connect disconnected tools and streamline operat...

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-13

everything i wish someone told me before i started using claude

A developer shared techniques for using Claude more effectively, including providing detailed context in queries, assigning Claude a specific role before asking questions, requesting step-by-step reasoning, and treating outputs as first drafts for editing rather than final products.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-12

My AI-Empowered Supercharged LinkedIn Workflow

A frontend engineer built LinkedIn Secret Weapon, a Chrome extension that personalizes connection messages using template variables and keyboard shortcuts to streamline LinkedIn outreach during job searching. The extension fills in recipient details like first name and company into a user-defined...

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-11

Brainstorming with ChatGPT

OpenAI published guidance on using ChatGPT to brainstorm ideas, organize thinking, and develop rough concepts into structured plans.

OpenAI Blog · 2026-04-11

Using projects in ChatGPT

OpenAI introduced a projects feature in ChatGPT that allows users to organize chats, files, and instructions while managing ongoing work and enabling team collaboration.

OpenAI Blog · 2026-04-11

Research with ChatGPT

OpenAI published guidance on using ChatGPT's search and deep research features to find current information, evaluate sources, and generate structured insights.

OpenAI Blog · 2026-04-11

The real upgrade in my AI Workflow was not better code generation

A developer described how their AI coding workflow evolved to prioritize workflow orchestration over code generation. They demonstrated completing an interactive skill selection feature in under an hour using AI DevKit, which executed an eight-phase development cycle from a single prompt.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-11

Using skills

OpenAI published guidance on creating and using ChatGPT skills to build reusable workflows and automate recurring tasks.

OpenAI Blog · 2026-04-11

Analyzing data with ChatGPT

OpenAI published guidance on using ChatGPT for data analysis tasks including dataset exploration, insight generation, and visualization creation.

OpenAI Blog · 2026-04-11

Using custom GPTs

OpenAI published guidance on building custom GPTs, which are specialized AI assistants designed to automate workflows and maintain consistent outputs for specific purposes.

OpenAI Blog · 2026-04-11

The Claude Prompt Pattern That Kills Debugging Spirals

A debugging prompt pattern uses XML-tagged sections to direct Claude to generate ranked hypotheses with verification steps rather than generic fixes, helping developers diagnose bugs more systematically by understanding root causes before applying solutions.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-10

AI Tools for Generating User Journeys and App Flows Automatically

AI tools now generate user journeys and app flow diagrams from text descriptions in seconds, reducing time previously spent in manual documentation. According to cited research, products with clearly defined flows have 52% fewer post-launch navigation issues, and teams using AI workflow tools rep...

Dev.to - AI · 2026-04-10

Self-Improving Python Scripts with LLMs: My Journey

A developer created a Python script system that uses LLMs to automatically analyze its own code, request improvement suggestions, and apply those changes via git commits. The approach uses the ast module for code parsing and the llm_groq interface to query language models.

Dev.to - AI · 2026-04-09

Zero Data Retention on AI Gateway

Vercel expanded its AI Gateway service to enforce Zero Data Retention across entire teams via dashboard settings, preventing AI model providers from retaining or training on user data without code changes required.

Vercel Blog · 2026-04-09

Effective AI Usage Patterns

A guide based on analysis of 500+ production prompts identifies eight principles for effective AI usage, emphasizing progressive delegation with verification, context preservation across sessions, and graduated responsibility rather than prompt wording optimization.

Dev.to - AI · 2026-04-09

Vercel Sandboxes now allow unique, customizable names

Vercel Sandboxes now support unique, customizable names instead of ID-based identification, making sandboxes easier to identify and reference within projects. The beta also adds configuration management and session inspection capabilities.

Vercel Blog · 2026-04-07

Why Your Claude-Generated Code Gets Messy (And What Actually Fixes It)

Code generated by Claude accumulates structural problems because the AI lacks persistent understanding of codebase architecture across sessions. Developers can mitigate this by explicitly scoping Claude's jurisdiction, maintaining a constraints file in the project root, treating outputs as drafts...

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-06

Stop Chatting With Claude. Start Orchestrating It.

A developer describes running multiple parallel Claude Code sessions to work on different features simultaneously, shifting from sequential chat-based interactions to an orchestration model where detailed plans with exact file paths and diffs are created before execution begins.

Dev.to - AI · 2026-04-06

I built a $2/month Claude API proxy — here's the curl command

A developer built an API proxy offering flat-rate access to Claude for $2/month, compared to standard per-token pricing or $20/month subscription fees. The proxy supports the full Anthropic Messages API and can be integrated with Claude Code via environment variables or direct API calls.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-06

Cleanup Claude Code Paste

Simon Willison released Cleanup Claude Code Paste, a web tool that removes terminal prompt characters and fixes whitespace when copying prompts from the Claude Code app.

Simon Willison · 2026-04-06

Claude Code rate limits: how to never hit them again

Claude Code users can avoid API rate limits by routing requests through a proxy service, compacting conversation history at 50% context capacity, breaking large tasks into smaller scoped requests, excluding unnecessary files via .claudeignore, and consolidating work into a single terminal session...

Dev.to - AI · 2026-04-05

I switched my Claude API base URL and stopped paying $20/month

A developer reduced Claude API costs from $20/month to $2/month by redirecting requests through a third-party proxy service using the ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL environment variable, which forwards calls to Anthropic's API and charges a flat fee instead of per-token pricing.

Dev.to - Claude · 2026-04-03