Think first.
AI makes building products easy. Designing the right experience still requires product design craft.
Hi! I'm Michael. I make things. These are my notes on designing + building with AI.
I built a career coach out of markdown files
A Claude Code-powered second brain that functions as a persistent life and career coach, and tells you what you're avoiding.
How to get your site cited by AI: A GEO field guide
AEO and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) require different signals than traditional SEO. Here's what I actually did to get pairwithclaude.com visible to AI systems and what the limits of that work are.
How to research a company's UX in 30 minutes before your next interview
A repeatable workflow for pulling real UX sentiment about any company's product, turning it into talking points, and walking into the interview as a peer instead of a candidate. Worked example with a real company. Includes a downloadable Claude skill.
Claude Design has the incumbents scrambling
Anthropic shipped Claude Design a month after Google's Stitch 2.0. Everyone's watching Figma. The tools that should actually be nervous are Lovable, Bolt, and everything in that lane.
Think first, prompt later
Generative coding with AI makes building easy. Building the right thing still takes design thinking. Here's why that matters more, not less, in the age of AI.
Terminal-first AI pair programmer. My primary building environment.
↗ ExpoA full-stack React Native framework with cloud services for building, deploying, and updating mobile apps across iOS, Android, and web from a single codebase.
↗ KlaritaA design brief and specification builder that walks you through discovery, problem and solution exploration to generate a build-ready spec, step by step.
↗ MotivistMotivist is a goal tracking and motivation app.
↗ Second BrainSkills for a personal "second brain" that runs entirely on plain markdown files maintained by Claude Code
↗ UX Sentiment ResearchClaude skill that pulls UX sentiment and friction patterns for any product and turns them into interview-ready talking points. Good for design interview prep and competitive analysis.
↗Converts any website into fully editable Figma designs without building each element from scratch.
↗ ImpeccableThe design language that makes your AI harness better at design.
↗ BoltAI app builder from StackBlitz. Prompts generate full-stack apps that run in the browser. Similar lane to Lovable. Good for fast prototypes without a local setup.
↗ LovableAI app builder that turns prompts into working full-stack apps. Good for spinning up prototypes fast without writing boilerplate.
↗ BalsamiqLow-fidelity wireframing tool that keeps designs intentionally rough so stakeholders focus on structure over aesthetics.
↗ MotivistMotivist is a goal tracking and motivation app.
↗Practitioner Essays on UX & Design
Subversives Jessica Walsh&Walsh / Type of Feeling
Discovery Fonts In UseTypography Documented in the Wild
Personal Andy MatuschakResearcher / Tools for Thought
Products GodlyCurated Website Design Gallery
Foundation Jason Santa MariaEditorial Digital Layouts