humancrafted.co/re/2026-11-08 how I use ai

How I use AI at Human Crafted

People who know me would probably call me an ideas guy, with a knack for actually making those ideas real. That has defined my life and career for decades. In the past few years, AI has amplified it in a way I have been waiting for the whole time. My danger zone has become focus… but lately I am using AI to help with that too.

I use AI in almost every part of Human Crafted: research, planning, business records, CAD and CAM, 3D printing, Figma, the website, the shop, software tools, full apps, client websites, writing, and a handful of jobs that run on a schedule before I’m at my desk. Mostly Claude (Claude Code, Cowork and Duet), connected to the tools I already use.

The value is in the setup and the habits, and those are worth sharing. This is a snapshot at the time of writing this post. Below you will find a LOT of examples briefly described. I’d be happy to elaborate about any of them, just email me.

The setup

Everything runs on plain text files in two places: Obsidian vaults and GitHub repos. Claude reads and edits the same files I do, so there’s no export step and nothing locked inside someone else’s app.

Markdown in vaults

A vault is just a folder of markdown (plain text) files.

A markdown file reads the same to me as it does to Claude. There’s no API to connect, no export, and no format that changes when an app updates. It’ll still open in any text editor decades from now. I can fix a record by hand in a few seconds, and Claude can change a hundred of them in one pass and show me exactly what changed.

The markdown files and their folders are my records, not a database in someone else’s app. Inventory, pricing and orders are simple tables I can open and change like any other note. There’s nothing extra to build, maintain or back up.

I use Obsidian as an editing interface. It links between notes, shows live views of tables, renders images. But it’s just a window onto a folder, the files don’t depend on it, and Claude doesn’t need it open. Sometimes I just edit the files in Claude’s own file editor.

I have two main vaults that are what Human Crafted runs on:

  • human-crafted-home is this website. Every project, product, post and co/re page is a note. The front matter at the top of each note holds the structured parts (price, stock, variants, colors, draft status, thumbnail links, categories, tools used, etc). This vault and the site isn’t just for show on the internet, it’s a reference for me and Claude, it just happens that I also publish those references for others to see. Since most references are plain markdown, one simple edit and a push to GitHub updates the website a few seconds later.

  • CoOps is the operations vault: product plans, inventory, pricing analysis, order tracking, supply counts, client job reports, invoice packets, and my billable time (No Time Flat, a time tracking app I developed with Claude, writes each session there as its own “flat” markdown file).

I use two other vaults for home: FoodBase for the family’s food and HomeBase for the house, which I will write about at another time.

GitHub as the file store

Every vault and project is in GitHub. It’s both a folder and a backup, and it handles version control: every change has a history, I can see exactly what Claude changed before I keep it, and anything can be rolled back. This website deploys straight from its repo, and any file vault that isn’t a repo itself is backed up to GitHub.

Each repo is a project folder. Some are code: the shop’s checkout function, Super Simple Signup, Trivia Tally. Some aren’t: product files and color swatches, 3D print files and design assets each have their own. And in Claude Code Desktop, each repo is its own project so chats specific to that project are easy to find and reference.

Skills, About Me and the Task Hub

Skills are written-down processes Claude follows the same way every time: adding a router bit, building an invoice packet, writing in my voice, adding a new synth to Synth Patch. If I’ve done something that I know we will repeat, it’s a skill now. When a result comes out wrong or we have a new learning, I fix the skill, not just the result, so it doesn’t happen again. They’re in a repo too, backed up with version control, and written so they’re sharable.

About Me is a Claude Cloud Doc with my rough schedule, my goals and a table of decision rules, each with its reason and the date it was added (“ask before anything that sends, publishes or spends”, “build the smallest version first”). Every session reads it, so I’m not re-explaining how I work, and advice gets weighed against my actual goals. Each morning Claude scans my recent chats and surfaces any decisions or rules we outlined and adds it to the doc.

The Task Hub is another Claude Cloud Doc which is a single task list across every project. Notes and repos hold records, but this doc holds tasks so they don’t end up scattered across fifty places. Claude builds the “Now” list from the project lists each morning, and the morning prompt (below) works from the whole hub.

Running the business

  • Morning prompt. A scheduled task weighs every project in my task hub against my goals and points at what’s blocking progress. It’s blunt on purpose, and it favors finishing over starting new things. Both Claude Code and Duet read and write the hub, so tasks get checked off throughout the day, and the next morning’s prompt starts from a list that’s already current.
  • Work planning. Claude refreshes the hub’s “Now” list every morning and leaves alone anything I added by hand. Before my last work block, it picks one thing to finish by 5, split into two to four checkable steps if it’s too big.
  • Process development. Frequently I converse with Claude about how a job should run (prep, setup, cutting, packing), then write it down and store it as memory or decisions so it runs the same way next time.
  • Records. Product colors, SKUs, price tiers, sheet layouts, supplies and orders live as markdown files or their front matter in the CoOps vault. Claude helps to keep them current/accurate and keeps the website’s copy in sync.
  • Invoicing. Billable time from No Time Flat (my own time tracker, below) and the invoices go in, a numbered invoice packet comes out, with a drafted cover email. I review it and send it myself.
  • Custom PDFs. With a simple prompt Claude can create invoice packets, statements of work, time summaries, fillable forms, packing lists, sales sheets, production run sheets.
  • Automations and reminders. Scheduled tasks for the morning prompt, the About Me refresh, the hub’s Now list and reminders. Twice a day another one checks CoOps for new shop orders and turns each into a “Fulfill order” task in the hub. Plus small automations that run on a Mac mini for backing up vault data to GitHub repos.
  • Business advice. I use Claude as a sounding board for pricing, goals and priorities, and where to spend my time and what to drop. I’ve told it to be a steadying check, not a cheerleader.

Design, CAD and the shop

  • CAD in Fusion 360. I have Claude drive Fusion 360 live on my machine: modeling new parts from dimensions, working out how an old model was built and rebuilding it parametrically, capturing views, and exporting meshes for printing (checking the export settings that fail silently).
  • CAM profiles and the CNC. The most valuable Fusion 360 capability has been setting up CNC toolpaths, feeds and speeds tuned to my X-Carve Pro’s real limits, and reading posted g-code before a cut.
  • Tooling library. Claude has helped to build a database of tooling to bolster my documentation, but it also reads that database of tools when designing toolpaths. I give Claude a part number and it looks up the bit’s real specs, assigns the next serial number, writes the note for the website, and adds the tool to my Fusion library with feeds and speeds presets.
  • 3D printing. Claude has helped with building 3D prints by writing g-code directly for some of them (no CAD at all), and dialing in print settings.
  • Blender. Claude uses the Blender CLI to create new models and renders, including the filament color swatches on the site.
  • Figma. Claude reads and writes Figma files directly: app designs, website layouts, social posts, PDFs, logos, color swatches, and the design tokens and components behind them. Figma is a place of collaboration, where Claude can create assets and I can refine or evolve them. The same is true the other direction.
  • Arduino. Claude writes Arduino C++ for small electronics projects in the shop.

The website and the shop

This site was built with Claude Code, and it’s a work in progress. We keep building and editing: new pages and projects, layouts and features, and resource pages for co/re.

  • Checkout. The shop runs on a small Vercel function and Stripe, no shop platform and no monthly fee. Claude wrote it with me: every item is re-priced on the server based on our markdown file, plus order numbers, shipping rules, and a security review to confirm prices and stock can’t be tampered with.
  • Order imports. Claude wrote a script to pull Stripe orders as a file so I can import them into Rollo Ship. Currently done manually.
  • Materials database. Acrylic colors and 3D printer filaments that I use or feature. I give Claude a website link to a material, and it uses a script to find the vendor photo, straightens it and makes a clean square swatch. Colors I’ve checked against a real sheet get shifted to match.
  • Sources page. Supplies and their specs are recorded in CoOps as markdown files from website links I give it. A script publishes only the ones I mark public to the website, it strips tracking junk from the links, and makes matching ink-toned thumbnails.

Software

Small utilities, each built with Claude for one job:

  • Illustrated Thumbnails turns a DXF drawing and an STL model into isometric line art with a real cast shadow, for product pages.
  • DXF to SVG, a converter for taking Fusion 360 drawings into Figma as editable vectors.
  • Dims and Units, two plugins that add needed features to Figma. Units is a conversion tool that lets a user enter real-world units in place of pixels. Dims offers scalable vector dimensions to be added to layouts or designs. Each is offered as open source designs, and are available in the Figma Community as official plugins.

And Claude has helped build full apps in Javascript and native Swift:

  • FoodBase, an iPhone and Mac app for meal planning, grocery lists and recipes, operating on top of the FoodBase vault.
  • No Time Flat, a time tracker for iPhone and Mac that saves billable hours as plain markdown in my CoOps vault.
  • Synth Patch, a web app (and companion marketing website) for saving synthesizer patches. Each synth is an interactive drawing of its front panel: turn the knobs, flip the switches, patch the cables, then save it with notes and an audio clip. This is the most complex and feature full app we have built together.
  • Super Simple Signup, a simpler, ad-free, but much better version of SignUpGenius, built in a few days.
  • Trivia Tally, a scoreboard for trivia nights. The organizer types scores, players follow a live leaderboard on their phones.

Builds for other people

Claude has helped build several client and community websites, from design through hosting: GitHub for the code, Vercel for hosting, Loops for email.

Writing and research

  • Drafting articles. Claude developed a voice guide skill: words I use, words I don’t, and the edits I always make. Drafts come back close, and I still edit every one. This post started that way.
  • Research. Claude researches vendors, materials, instructions, how-to guides, recommendations and reviews, parts, markets and regulations.
  • Price comparison. Vendors, materials, parts and shipping rates, checked in the right currency.

What I don’t hand over

  • Judgment. Claude proposes, I decide, especially on design details, labels and anything people will see.
  • Anything that sends, publishes or spends. I approve each one. Passwords, security keys, environment variables, stay with me. Claude NEVER purchases, ever.
  • Commits. Code goes into a repo and merged into a codebase only when I say so.
  • Control. Claude isn’t connected to my bank, my accounting software or my email. It can read what’s in my files, including some financial records, so I decide what goes in them.

If you’re wondering where AI could fit in your business, that’s what my AI integration work is for. Or just email me and ask.