Guided build · an evening
Personal budget tracker
Add an expense in two taps; see monthly totals by category and a weekly chart. (The snap-a-receipt version is a Module 8 upgrade.)
No commands. No code. You're about to build this by SAYING what you want — in your own language. The only skill is describing the result well. Here's the whole thing, start to finish.
Add an expense in two taps; see monthly totals by category and a weekly chart. (The snap-a-receipt version is a Module 8 upgrade.)
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
- 1For any 'tracker' tool, nail THREE things in the ask: what ONE entry holds (here: amount, category, date), what the MAIN screen shows (this month's total + a breakdown), and WHERE it's saved (on your device).
- 2List the categories yourself — don't let Claude invent them. Your money, your buckets: groceries, eating out, transport, bills, fun, other.
- 3Add 'everything stays on my device, nothing is sent anywhere' — or it may try to bolt on accounts and a cloud you don't want.
- 4Always end with the magic line: 'build the whole thing and tell me exactly how to open it; don't stop to ask questions.'
claude --dangerously-skip-permissions
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.
✕ what most people type
you ▸ make me a budget app
✓ what actually works — copy it, or better, say it in YOUR words
you ▸ Build me a personal budget tracker. A big 'add expense' button
opens a form with amount, a category I pick (groceries, eating
out, transport, bills, fun, other) and a date. The main screen
shows this month's total at the top, a breakdown by category
with little bars, and a weekly bar chart underneath. Let me edit
or delete any expense. Everything saves on my device, dark
theme, big readable numbers. Build the whole thing and tell me
exactly how to open it; don't stop to ask questions.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:
you ▸ add a monthly spending limit and warn me in red when I'm close you ▸ let me set a category like 'eating out' and show how much is left in it this month you ▸ add a button to export this month's expenses to a CSV file
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 THREE fake expenses in different categories.
- 2Look at the big number up top: does the month total equal those three amounts added together? If not, the math is your first fix.
- 3Add another to one category — do the breakdown bars actually move?
- 4Refresh the page (F5 / Cmd-R). Are your three expenses still there? If they vanish, 'saves on my device' isn't wired up — fix that next.
- 5Delete one. It should disappear AND the total should drop. That confirms edit/delete works.
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:
you ▸ 'the month total doesn't match the list — recalculate it from the expenses every time one changes' you ▸ 'when I refresh the page my expenses disappear — save them on my device so they stay' you ▸ 'the category bars are tiny and unlabelled — make them bigger and show the amount on each'
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:
you ▸ 'add a monthly limit per category and turn the bar red when I'm close' — tracking becomes control. you ▸ 'let me paste rows copied from my bank statement and auto-sort them into my categories by keyword' — this swallows a whole separate tool. you ▸ 'add a snap-a-receipt button — I photo a receipt and it reads the amount and shop for me' (this is the Module 8 upgrade). you ▸ 'show a second chart comparing this month against last month' — so you see the trend, not just one number.
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 — all the budgeting math runs locally on your device.
- 2Want to pull transactions automatically? Open-banking providers (GoCardless Bank Account Data, Plaid's sandbox) have free tiers — but ask Claude first: 'what's the simplest free way to import my bank's transactions?'
- 3Reusable move for ANY idea: ask Claude — 'look up free or open APIs that fit a personal budget tool and tell me which actually need a key.' It will list them; you pick.
About paying for the AI parts
- 1You don't pay for Claude twice. With a Claude subscription you create an API key right in the terminal and use it inside your projects — within your plan.
- 2From June 15 the rule splits: automation through that key gets its own monthly credit — about $20 on Pro, $100 or $200 on Max. Stay under it and it works as before.
- 3Run out and you pay per use (pay-as-you-go); unused credit doesn't roll over. So check your account and see whether the included credit already covers what you're building.
A tool gets superpowers when it can talk to other services — send you a message, read a sheet, pull live data. Each service hands out an 'API key' (a long password that says 'this is me'). For THIS tool, the useful ones are:
Which keys this tool can use
- 1Google Sheets — log every expense into a spreadsheet you can open on any device
- 2Telegram — text the bot an amount and have it added to your budget without opening the app
Getting any key is the same recipe: log into the service → find Settings → 'API' or 'Developers' → 'Create key' → copy it → paste it to Claude once ('here's my key: …'). Claude stores it and you never touch it again.
Step 4 — Put it online (only if someone else needs it)
So you and your partner can add expenses to the same budget from both phones.
Buy a server and a domain — like ordering groceries
- 1Server: sign up at a host (Hetzner, DigitalOcean…), click 'Create Server', pick Ubuntu + the cheapest size + PASSWORD login. SAVE the IP address and password it gives you. (Don't be scared — it's a few dollars a month, cancel anytime.)
- 2Domain: buy a name at any registrar (Namecheap, Cloudflare…). Then add ONE 'A record': Type = A, Host = @, Value = your server's IP. That's the whole DNS part — ignore every other field.
- 3Hand it to Claude: back in your terminal, say — 'deploy my project to my server. IP: <the ip>, password: <the password>, domain: <yourname.com>. Set up HTTPS and basic security, do it all yourself.' Claude installs everything, secures it, and makes it live. You configure nothing.
- 4DNS can take minutes to a couple of hours to wake up — if Claude says the domain isn't answering yet, that's the wait, not a mistake. Come back later and say 'try again'.
Step 5 — Keep your keys (so you can come back)
Save the server's IP, the password (or SSH key), and your domain somewhere safe — a notes app, a password manager. Why it matters: any day later you can open the terminal, connect to the server, start Claude right there, and keep improving the live tool by talking — fix a bug, add a feature, change the look. Tip: tell Claude 'save the server details in a file in this project folder' so a future chat already knows them.
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.
- 5Forgetting the magic line — 'build the whole thing, don't stop to ask questions' — then wondering why it keeps pausing.
- 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.
Notice what just happened: no commands, no code — words. This is the entire skill. The people who 'can build things' are just people who describe what they want and let Claude do the typing.
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