Baptised by Claude Code

On ambitious tools reshaping the hand that wields them

Last week I replaced my old MacBook (2021 M1) with a new one (M4 chip). For a person like me, setting up a new laptop is therapeutic. The idea of starting from a clean slate (even if it's just the laptop) is almost as exciting as the offer to make a new beginning in life. Like every notable human experience, this one too has been named by behavioural scientists. They call it, unimaginatively, the "fresh start effect". However, I suspect that the new laptop will eventually reach the same messy state the old one was because the user (yours truly) is the same person with the same work habits and the old ways of working. So all this clean slate effect is just a false sense of change.

But I have reason to believe that this time it's going to be different. Because the very first thing I installed on this new laptop was Claude Code (CC). I took CC's help for everything — how to structure files and folders, naming conventions, selecting tools and softwares, creating useful keyboard shortcuts etc. Instead of just reinstalling the stuff that I had on my old machine, I debated with Claude to understand if there was a better way of doing it instead of relying on a bloated tool. In other words, the new machine was baptised by a different and smarter-know-it-all priest this time.

For example, I had been using Maccy as clipboard manager but Claude pointed out that in the new MacOS (Tahoe), clipboard manager is integrated seamlessly with the spotlight search. That's charmingly useful. It's an empowering feeling that now I am much better informed about things that are running on my machine. I am saying that a bit sheepishly because the last thing anyone running AI agent would acknowledge is that "I know what's going on."

I figured that working with Claude Code (a CLI agent), has oriented my work towards terminal. I have a feeling that I time on the terminal has increased by three times. As I am doing anything on my laptop, the background thread in my head is wondering if I can delegate that work to CC. Or, how can I setup things which will align it better for CC. Another example — instead of installing softwares via traditional (downloading and then dragging to Application folder) way, I am now using Homebrew for everything. Having applications via Homebrew makes it straightforward for the Claude Code to find them. The only thing that didn't come via Homebrew was Scrivener (my writing tool) and the laser printer driver that I needed to make my printer work because those two softwares were not available on Homebrew. And that's an example of a tool changing its user's behaviour. It's an interesting detour so allow me to indulge in it for a bit.

The conventional view says a tool is a means to accomplish a task. Put simply, the task should define what the tool does. However, the capabilities of the tool shape what the user does with it. I think this insight finds its origin in Marshall McLuhan's media theory. It says medium defines the message. In other words, different media require different kinds of cognition. I was first introduced to this perspective by Amit Varma. He points out how the content in his podcast changed as the duration went from twenty minutes to several hours (the longest one is a 12 hour conversation with Devdutt Pattanaik). In a similar vein, I found myself telling a friend how Zoom restricting its free users to forty minutes results in many video calls (and even amateur YouTube interviews/podcasts) being restricted to less than forty minutes.

Now, back to my original plot. If you've been wondering why tech nerds are raving how their AI agents have made them more ambitious, I can vouch for that. A big chunk of my "staring at the ceiling" time is thinking what all can CC do for me. Yesterday, I thought of reviving my old domain (anshulkhare.com). I had considered doing it several times in the last 10 years but the annoying drill of setting up DNS, Mail Server, etc. was a mental friction. With CC, it was a breeze.

While I was still marveling at my new domain, it occurred to me that one way to be more prolific with my blogs is to reduce the friction. Maybe I could just compose the post in a text file and then ask CC to publish it on Substack without going through the trouble of opening Substack editor, formatting, clicking several buttons etc. Your wish is my command, said CC. In no time it figured out an unofficial python library to publish posts on one’s Substack and built me a cli tool to do that. This post was published via that cli tool. I don't know if Claude Code has made unfeasible things feasible but it has certainly collapsed the annoying work of figuring out the boring prerequisites. For years, the projects that kept languishing in the "someday" bucket are now ready to be resurrected. What I will build is now limited only by what I can imagine.