The Build Log
What building with AI actually looks like, one day at a time.
Daily notes from running software businesses with Claude Code: an electrical calculator site, a course, and the automation behind both. What worked, what broke, and the real numbers. Posted here and on LinkedIn.
- My newsletter job never trusts the platform's word that it worked progress update
- The job ran clean every single day, and nothing published for eight of them before after
- Why I finished an AI feature and still have not turned it on question
- The AI fixed three broken links and missed a fourth before after
- I never let the AI that wrote a change be the one that signs off on it lesson learned
- A security rule strict enough to break my own site ships in listen-only mode first story
- The job that publishes my blog runs every single day, and I am never there for it progress update
- A copy of my own writing rules had quietly drifted from the original opinion
- Before an AI change goes live, I ask what breaks if it is wrong how i did it
- The expensive model was five times the cost for a job that never thinks twice metrics snapshot
- My dashboard said 18 videos never went out. Every one of them had. story
- 1,396 people got an email with no way to unsubscribe, and I didn't know until I went looking lesson learned
- What my newsletter job does when the email platform won't give it a straight answer question
- The undo button mattered more than the rewrite button it sits next to opinion
- My system could hear "not now." It could not hear "never." opinion
- The math checked out on all 300 questions. 22 of them were still wrong. metrics snapshot
- Everything I have to approve now waits in exactly one place how i did it
- A draft for this post existed before I was out of bed that morning progress update
- A visitor could pick dark on one of my sites and get light back on the next before after
- Sixty pages sat unread by Google, and every one looked fine to me. before after
- Two copies of my posting job ran at once. One video went out twice. lesson learned
- This blog could publish five posts today. It never will, on purpose. opinion
- The security rule has been live for two months and has never blocked a single visitor. metrics snapshot
- What stops an automated email from going to everyone before you've seen it? question
- A new calculator went up on my site almost every day this week. I built none of them. how i did it
- It told me all 400 were updated. One of them still had the old paragraph. lesson learned
- My wife and I had a problem at dinner. I had something working before bed. how i did it
- The good ideas show up in the truck. Mine used to die there. how i did it
- There is a job in your business nobody was hired to do opinion
- Feedback used to mean rewrite it yourself or reject it. Now there's a third option. before after
- A subscriber group sat empty for weeks, and nothing said so progress update
- What twelve to seventeen hours a week actually runs metrics snapshot
- An absent cookie used to mean two different things. That was the whole bug. lesson learned
- One filming session, ten posts. Here is how the second through tenth get made. how i did it
- The most expensive part of this was never money. story
- What if writing was never the job? question
- Four sites, four different definitions of finished. Now there's one checklist. before after
- This blog went quiet for five days. Here's the actual reason. opinion
- One vote per member per month, and how I made it hold how i did it
- The paid community moved off someone else's server progress update
- A stale doc almost outlived what it described lesson learned
- TikTok never gets its own decision how i did it
- I keep a written list of exactly how this could all go wrong opinion
- I never let the AI that wrote the code review the code lesson learned
- Your content list is probably a queue. It should be a menu. opinion
- My rate limiter had failed silently three times before I tested the right thing lesson learned
- I hit 205 of a 250 call daily API cap and never saw it coming lesson learned
- The five things every page on my sites ships now how i did it
- One dead business, three products before after
- The back office worked. The business did not. how i did it
- I killed a business this week lesson learned
- This post published itself question
- The Sunday meal planning argument is gone before after
- Build tools, not content opinion
- Never let an AI guess a safety calculation lesson learned
- The unglamorous numbers, month two metrics snapshot
- A calculator ships itself every Monday at 7am how i did it
- I mostly stopped writing code this year story