Geoffrey Litt@geoffreylitt
Researcher, Ink & Switch; malleable software
Claude Code for personal toolsSingle-user tooling
Representative of Geoffrey's malleable-software essays — using Claude Code to build tiny personal tools (email triage, file organizer, PDF extractor) that would never justify a product.
“The interesting software of the next decade is the stuff only one person uses.”
How to replicate
- 1.Notice a repeated 10-minute task you do weekly.
- 2.Open Claude Code in a scratch directory and describe the task, the inputs, and the output shape.
Prompt template
Write a small command-line tool in Python. Input: <file type / folder / URL>. Output: <what I want back>. Keep it under 100 lines, no external services beyond <stdlib / one specific lib>. Add a --dry-run flag. Assume one user: me.
Pitfall
Over-building. If the tool needs config, retries, or tests, you've left 'personal software' territory and should stop or rewrite it properly.
What you'll learn
- •How to recognize candidates for single-user tools
- •Why personal software has different quality constraints than products
- •How to use Claude Code as a scripting partner, not a product factory
- •When to stop iterating and just use the thing
#claude-code#personal-software#scripts