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What it's for, and what it isn't

Start by asking

The biggest change isn't what Claude Code can do. It's when you think of using it.

Before you start on something, ask it how it would go about it. Not "do this", but "how would you do this". Quite often you'll find out it can be done differently from the way you've done it for years.

And when something doesn't work, ask as well. An error message, a broken export, a spreadsheet that doesn't add up — all of that is a perfectly usable brief.

What it's good for

  • Data and analysis

    You have an export from your online shop, your accounting or your campaigns, and you need to get something out of it. Merge two spreadsheets, work out the margin, find what's behaving oddly.

    You need: data in .csv or .xlsx

  • Visualisations and overviews

    Turn numbers into a chart, and charts into a page you can send to someone. Not as a one-off — an overview you build once, you run again next time on new data.

    You need: the data and an idea of what you want to see

  • Working with text

    Summarise a long document, restructure it, pull out the key points, rewrite it in a different tone. Or the other way round: turn notes into flowing text.

    You need: the source text, ideally in .md or .txt

  • Websites and simple apps

    From a one-page website to a small tool that does one thing and does it well. The agent writes the code, runs it and shows you right away what it looks like.

    You need: a brief, the copy, the images

  • Automating repetitive work

    Rename two hundred files, convert formats, apply the same change across a whole folder. Anything you keep doing by hand, the same way, over and over.

    You need: the files to process

  • Research and groundwork

    Find out who's in a market, what they do and where the numbers are. Gather it all in one place, in a form you can use.

    You need: a clearly put question

What it's not for

Things that work and cost next to nothing

Accounting, your email client, invoicing, your calendar. Existing software for these took years to build, costs little each month and someone maintains it. Building your own means swapping a finished thing for something you'll be fixing yourself.

Complex development

A system the company's operations depend on, work with sensitive data, anything where a mistake costs real money. That's a job for a developer who takes responsibility for it.

Is it worth it?

Before anything bigger, ask yourself one question:

How much time will this save me, and how much will I put into it?

If you do something once a year and it takes an hour, leave it. If you do it every week, it almost always pays off — and the second time round you just call it up.