My students often ask me about my own Claude code workflow. I’ll summarize my current workflow but I’m sure it will change as Claude Code changes.
My learnings
- Ask Claude to use CLI + auth keys, almost everything you need to use on the web browser to configure usually can be done via CLI. Don’t use the browser to configure AWS, Gcloud, Vercel, Github, Supabase..etc, there is a CLI for that
- Use Github and Github actions to test and deploy
- Always send pull requests for changes and use preview environments
- Ask Claude Code to create planning documents, and create Github issues for longer running features
Local development environment
- Running inside the terminal without an IDE. I do not use Visual Studio Code, Cursor for generating code.
- I always run in permission to allow all action modes. My machine and my code are both completely backed up, I do not worry about the rare chance that CC will mess up my machine or delete files
- I use iTerm on Macbook Pro 15″ with 16GB ram using 3 to 6 tabs.
- I install the following command line
- gh
- gcloud
- aws
- flutter
- firebase
- gwt – just started on Jan 19th to use this for working with git worktress
Source Code and automated builds
- I store all my projects in private GitHub repositories
- I use the standard GitHub Actions to run tests and do basic linting of the code
- I also use GitHub actions to deploy to a pull request specific test environment on every change so I can test the changes before merging to main branch
- On these 2 branches, ios-appstore, android-appstore I use GitHub actions to build the release versions for the Apple App Store and Android Playstore
- These use GitHub Action secrets to store sign keys and API keys
- On merge to the main branch, GitHub Actions deploy to the app stores
- Before launching do a security analysis
Cloud environments
- I mainly use Google Cloud, Firebase for storing nosql data, blob storage, authentication, logs, metrics
- I might use AWS for domain names
- Azure for Windows VMs for testing
Workflows
- After the basic prototype is in place, every change goes through a pull request process, with automated testing
- I test locally using Android Emulator, iOS Simulator, Chrome Dev Tools
- For anything that is more than a simple one shot, I ask for a plan written in ./docs/someplan.md and then ask Claude to break it down into atomic, testable units.
- If a feature will take many iterations, I ask Claude to create GitHub issues for each phase
Before launching production
- I ask for a security analysis and create GitHub issues with severity and priority
- Then I work through those security items, focusing on the highest priority items. I focus on any API keys exposure, open database access