Guided build · ~15 min
Habit & wellbeing tracker
Tick your habits and log how you feel — watch streaks grow and patterns appear. Yours, private, no ads.
You will build this by describing what you want in plain words, in your own language. Claude writes the code; your job is to describe the result well and check it. Here is the whole path, start to finish.
Tick your habits and log how you feel — watch streaks grow and patterns appear. Yours, private, no ads.
First, how to actually talk to the agent
- 1Describe the RESULT, not the tech: what's on screen, what each button does, what gets saved. The agent handles the 'how'.
- 2Be concrete about screens and fields — 'a form with amount, category and date' beats 'let me add expenses'.
- 3Ask for the smallest working version first. You grow it by talking afterwards — that's Step 2, not the first message.
- 4Decide what's YOURS, not the agent's: name the categories, colours, rules. Don't make it guess what only you know.
Step 1 — Build it live
Prompting for this kind of tool
- 1This is two tools in one row of the same screen, so name both halves clearly: the HABITS side (your own habits, each ticked once a day, with a current-streak flame and a best-ever) and the WELLBEING side (mood 1-5 with faces, energy 1-5, hours of sleep — one entry per day). Spell out both or Claude builds only the half it noticed first.
- 2Decide the rules yourself: a tick is once per day (not a counter you can spam), a streak counts consecutive ticked days and breaks on a miss, and the daily feel-log is one record per date that you can overwrite. Say this plainly so streaks and logs behave the way you expect.
- 3Say what the THREE views show: a 'today' list up top of just what's left to tick, a month grid of ticked-vs-missed at a glance, and a two-week chart that plots mood and sleep together so a pattern can surface. Without that last one you get tracking but no insight.
- 4Add 'everything stays on my device, this is a private diary, no accounts and nothing sent anywhere' — then end with: 'build the whole thing, check that it works, and tell me exactly how to open it.'
claude
Open the terminal and run this (if Claude is already running, type /exit first). Then ask it to make a folder for this project and work inside it.
Say it in YOUR language — Russian, Spanish, anything. Claude understands.
Build it now — tick as you go
0/6Step 2 — It's built. Now make it yours
Don't panic at the techy link. Claude tells you one of two things. Either a file like index.html — find it in your project folder and double-click it; it opens in your browser. Or a web address starting with http://localhost — copy it into your browser's address bar and press Enter. 'localhost' just means 'this is running on your own computer right now'. That's your tool. It's real.
Now tweak it until YOU like it — just talk
This is the part that makes it YOURS. Don't accept the first version — change it by saying what you want, right there in the same chat. Claude rebuilds and you refresh. Keep going until it fits how you actually work. For this tool, try things like:
I don't type long messages. I open voice-to-text (the mic in ChatGPT, or your phone keyboard), and just TALK through everything I think about what it built — what's wrong, what I want next — then select-all, copy, and paste the whole brain-dump into Claude Code. Messy spoken thoughts work fine; the agent sorts them out. It's several times faster than writing.
Step 2.5 — Test it like a real thing (it won't be perfect first try)
The truth no one tells beginners: the first build is a DRAFT. The agent makes something, you run it, you find what's off, you tell it — and THAT loop is the actual work. Don't read the code. Use the tool like a stranger would and watch where it lets you down. For this tool, check exactly this:
- 1Open it (Claude gives a localhost link or an index file — see Step 2) and add about five habits of your own, then tick three of them for today.
- 2Look at the 'today' list: did the three you ticked drop off it, leaving only what's left? And did a streak flame appear on the ticked ones?
- 3Open the 'how I feel today' panel and log a mood, an energy level and a sleep number — then check the two-week chart actually plots those points instead of staying empty.
- 4Refresh the page (F5 / Cmd-R). Are your habits, your ticks and today's feel-log all still there? If the streaks reset to zero or the log vanishes, 'saves on my device' isn't wired up — fix that first.
- 5Untick one habit you ticked. The streak should drop and it should reappear in the 'today' list — that confirms ticking is reversible and the streak is honest.
Found something wrong? Say it like this
You fix nothing yourself — you DESCRIBE what's wrong in plain words and the agent fixes it. Be specific: what you saw vs. what you expected. Real examples for this tool:
Don't stop at v1 — grow it
A tool you built in ten minutes is a starting point, not the finish line. The people who get hooked keep saying 'now also…'. Each line below is one sentence you paste into the same chat to level this tool up:
Step 3 — Connect it to the world (optional)
Free data & APIs for this one
An API is just how your tool pulls in outside data or sends things out — many are free. You rarely need to research them yourself; the move that works for ANY idea is to ask the agent to find them:
- 1To start you need NO external API — every habit, tick, streak and feel-log lives locally on your device, and that's exactly right for a private diary.
- 2This isn't medical software and shouldn't pretend to be: keep it as your own log, not advice. If you later want a fitness band's sleep numbers in here, ask Claude — 'what's the simplest free way to pull my sleep data in, and does it need a key?'
- 3Reusable move for ANY idea: ask Claude — 'look up free or open APIs that fit a habit and wellbeing tracker and tell me which actually need a key.' It will list them; you pick.
About paying for the AI parts
- 1Building the tool with Claude Code is covered by your Claude plan (Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise) within its usage limits.
- 2If the finished tool itself should call Claude (for example to write texts for you), it needs its own API key from the Claude Console, and that use is paid separately, per use.
- 3Prices change; check claude.com/pricing before you plan anything that runs often.
This tool needs no keys to be great — it runs entirely on your computer. Add one only if you later want it to reach out to a service.
Step 4 — Put it online (only if someone else needs it)
Just for you, on your computer? You're already done — skip this step with a clear conscience. Put it online only if someone ELSE should open it, or you want to reach it from your phone away from home.
Step 6 — Stay safe (two easy habits)
- 1Back up anything you'd hate to lose. If the tool holds real data (your budget, health log, client list), ask Claude early: 'add an export/backup button' — one click saves your data to a file. Do it before you ever rebuild from scratch or move the folder.
- 2Don't hand Claude the keys to dangerous rooms. Keep it pointed at this project's own folder. Never connect a learning project to your bank, your crypto, or anything irreversible. Receipts and calendars — yes. Savings — no.
- 3Think before you ask. Claude does what you say in the folder you're in. 'Optimize my photos' optimizes them; it won't delete them — unless you ask for something reckless. Sane requests, clean workspace, and there's simply nothing scary left.
The mistakes that stop most people
- 1Asking for something vague ('make me an app') and getting something vague back. Name the screens, the buttons, what gets saved.
- 2Cramming in ten features at once. Ask for the tiniest working version first — then grow it with follow-up requests.
- 3Stopping at the first error. An error isn't failure — paste it to Claude or describe what you see, and it fixes it. That loop IS the work.
- 4Deciding you need to 'learn programming first'. You don't need to understand the code Claude writes. You need to describe the result.
- 5Not saying what 'done' means. End the request with how you will check it, for example 'done when I can add an item and it is still there after I reload the page'.
- 6Building for an imaginary audience. Build the version YOU will open tomorrow. Polish never; use immediately.
Normal. Tell Claude what's wrong in plain words ('the button does nothing', 'the page is blank') or paste the red error text. It finds and fixes it. You check. Repeat until it works.
That's it. You built a real tool.
You described the tool in words, Claude built it, and you checked it yourself. That is the whole loop, and it works the same for bigger tools.