Full Tutorial: Automate Your Life with Claude Code in 50 Min | Teresa Torres

At the beginning of my day, I literally just write today and we can see what it does. It generates my to-do list for

does. It generates my to-do list for today. It's going to go to Trello and

today. It's going to go to Trello and see if anybody on my team has added any new Trello cards and then it basically runs this Python script and then you can see it's going to read my Today MD and

it's going to update it. And you can see it popped up here. So, this is a link to my research digest, my blog post. It's

9,000 words and I wrote it in 1 and 1/2 days. There is no way I would have done

days. There is no way I would have done this myself. That is insane to me.

this myself. That is insane to me.

here's how I'm thinking about it. What

do you think? Oh, I don't really like that. What if we try this other way? And

that. What if we try this other way? And

then I do that throughout the whole construction of the blog post. You can

just be like, "Enter me about my business." And then it will ask you a

business." And then it will ask you a bunch of questions and then it will write a context file for you. This file

we're looking at, this profile, I never wrote a word of it. Every time I have Claude add a context file, I say, "What index needs to be [music] updated?" And

it just figures it out.

>> Let's say I'm just overwhelmed by all this stuff. What are your three tips to

this stuff. What are your three tips to get started? Whenever you find yourself

get started? Whenever you find yourself [music] explaining context to Claude, stop and think about, am I ever going to have to explain this context [music] to Claude again?

>> Okay, welcome everyone. Uh my guest today is Terresa Torres. Uh Teresa is a legend in the PM field. She's author of continuous discovery habits, but today we're going to talk about how Teresa

uses cloud code for everything from writing to editing to task management to coding. uh really excited to get her to

coding. uh really excited to get her to give us a tour of her cloud code projects and to show us how it's actually done. So, welcome Teresa.

actually done. So, welcome Teresa.

>> Thanks for having me. I'm excited to do this.

>> Yeah. Um so, you know, I've also used cloud code quite quite a bit, but I I'm super interested in seeing your uh highle workflow. So, maybe you can give

highle workflow. So, maybe you can give us a quick tour first.

>> Yeah, let me share my screen. Okay, so

what we're looking at is really simple.

I have Obsidian here on the left and then and if people aren't familiar with Obsidian, it's just a note-taking tool that's based on Markdown. And then I have two terminal windows on the right.

And the big thing that I use Claude Code for like I started using it coding just like everybody else most that's most people's entry into it. Um but I what I really loved about Claude Code with

coding is it's almost like you're pair programming with Claude. And I was like wow how do I pair with Claude on everything that I do? And so I started doing this for writing and for strategy

and for literally all of the work that I do. This is my setup. This is my work

do. This is my setup. This is my work obsidian vault. So I have an obsidian

obsidian vault. So I have an obsidian vault called work. In it there's a bunch of subdirectories. One of them is LLM

of subdirectories. One of them is LLM context which I'll get into that. And

then my notes which is just any notes that I have. I have a research project that we can talk through. I have my tasks system. Worthy reads are like

tasks system. Worthy reads are like articles that I've saved that other people wrote that I really like. And

then my writing directory. And then you can see I have a cloud MD file here. Um,

and we can kind of go through all of this, but I'm going to start with tasks.

So, the way my task system works is I have folders for different things. So, I

have a folder for bugs. I have a folder for ideas. I have a folder for tasks.

for ideas. I have a folder for tasks.

And every day, I launch CL Claude inside my tasks folder. So, you can see this top terminal window. I'm in tasks. I'm

just going to launch Claude. And at the beginning of my day, I literally just write today. And we can see what it

write today. And we can see what it does. The first thing it's going to do

does. The first thing it's going to do is it's going to go to Trello and see if anybody on my team has added any new Trello cards to my board. You can see, good news, there's no new Trello cards.

I've already run this today, but we'll just see what it looks like. And then it basically runs this Python script where it generates my to-do list for today.

So, that's what we're looking at here on in Obsidian. It says Monday, November

in Obsidian. It says Monday, November 10th. I have one overdue item. I have a

10th. I have one overdue item. I have a number of items that are due today. And

then I have my in progress ideas that I'm working on. And uh this script just generated this file. Every task is a markdown file. So you can see in my

markdown file. So you can see in my tasks folder, I just have a whole bunch of tasks. Basically my this task that's

of tasks. Basically my this task that's overdue was due on Friday. You can see it's just I have to call the grooming place for my dog and schedule an appointment for her and I didn't do that

yet. Um and then all my other tasks like

yet. Um and then all my other tasks like I have calls with a couple people today.

Um, I'm writing a Claude code safety article. I've got to add some images to

article. I've got to add some images to it. All this stuff just shows up on my

it. All this stuff just shows up on my to-do list every day based on what I put in my tasks.

>> Got it. So, the other tasks like the calls and stuff, is it coming from your calendar or is it coming from just your notes?

>> It's tasks that I've created. And I'll

show you. We're going to create a new task together. I'll show you what that

task together. I'll show you what that looks like.

>> Got it.

>> Um, so that's the first thing is when I run the today command, I do it every morning. It's basically looking through

morning. It's basically looking through my tasks folder and looking for anything that's due today or anything that's overdue. And then it creates this today

overdue. And then it creates this today file for me and it's just telling me what do I need to do today.

>> And then I distinguish between tasks that have a due date and ideas that you know they're like more like projects that don't have a specific due date, but they're things that I have going that

are ongoing. So you can see like I have

are ongoing. So you can see like I have a podcast just now possible that's like always in my in progress because it's reminding me to like make sure I

schedule guests and um you can see here I have a single episode. This is my project for like getting that episode ready to be released. Um and then I have

a task for social media, but this is really just my like remember to schedule guests kind of thing that's always in progress. Um, and so what this does is

progress. Um, and so what this does is it gives me a lot of flexibility. If I

just have a random idea, I can just say it a cla new idea and it will tell it what it is. It will create a markdown file. It'll put it in my ideas folder.

file. It'll put it in my ideas folder.

>> Um, if it's a task, I can give it a due date and then it will show up on my on this like to-do list. This is just called my today MD on the day that it's due.

>> Should we try making uh maybe like uh record pockets of Peter or something like some sort of task?

>> Yeah. So, we'll do a new task in just a second here. The other thing that's

second here. The other thing that's happening when I run this today command, it is I've built this research system.

So, I'm trying to keep up to date on like academic research that's related to my um work. And so, I built this system that searches a preprint server and then

Google Scholar every day and it gives me a research report of what's relevant to my work and that gets added to this today list. So you can see right here

today list. So you can see right here it's not here yet and it's because we haven't done that part. So it's running this slash command that's part of my research project and now it's asking me oh it wants to go see if there's a research queue. So we're going to say

research queue. So we're going to say yes to that.

>> And then you'll see it's going to update this today list with any research for me to review. The Q's empty.

to review. The Q's empty.

It's creating my research today MD.

>> Got it. So this is just like uh searching some websites to find new research, right? Yeah. Yep. And then you

research, right? Yeah. Yep. And then you can see it's going to read my today MD and it's going to update it and you can see it popped up here. So this is a link to my [snorts] research digest. So that

that's my today command and you can see it gives me a summary like this is what I just did. I created your today MD with an overdue task 10 in tasks for in progress your research whatever. And

then you can see it's also creating a this week view and a next week view.

>> Got it. Okay. Yeah.

>> Okay. So let's say I want to do a new task. We're actually going to write a

task. We're actually going to write a blog post together. So, I'm going to do new task. Um,

new task. Um, write plan auto except Claude

blog post. Do today draft

blog post. Do today draft outline with Claude. And it basically this this tasks folder is set up with a

cloud MD so that Claude knows what to do with this. It knows to create a task.

with this. It knows to create a task.

You can see it's using Obsidian front matter and I've defined this whole system for Claude so it knows to do this. It's defining as a task. It's

this. It's defining as a task. It's

putting the due date as today. It's

tagging it for me. It's give basically giving me kind of a checklist. I It's

actually not supposed to do this because it's kind of a Chromy checklist. Um it's

supposed to just take my notes, but pretty good. We're going to go with

pretty good. We're going to go with that. And then let's see if sometimes

that. And then let's see if sometimes Claude is smart enough to put something due today on my today MD. It's not this time. So I'm going to say add to today

time. So I'm going to say add to today MD.

>> Got it. Okay.

>> And then what that's going to do is it's just going to add that task. You can see it's here. So now I have my write plan

it's here. So now I have my write plan autoac accept mode. What I love about this is I work out of the terminal most of the day and I keep this tasks terminal open all the time. So if like I

think of something that I have to do or I have a random idea, I literally can just be like new idea blah blah blah blah and it's done. And then I can just go back to my work in my other window.

And it's it's [snorts] a lot faster than like opening a web browser, going to Trello, creating a new card, setting a due date, right? It's just it's super fast and that's what I love about it.

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Now, back to our episode.

>> The other thing I'll share is it allows me to do things like, uh, what are all my marketing ideas?

and it's just going to go search my ideas folder for anything related to marketing. And so like whenever I'm

marketing. And so like whenever I'm working on a new project, I can just ask Claude like what are my tasks related to this or what am I what are my idea open ideas that are related to this and it

just goes out and finds them and like Trello has search but it's not the best frankly.

>> Okay.

>> Um so I like this a lot too.

>> So you have like ideas and memories and like random re research snippets that you pull.

>> Yeah. So you can see >> like in my tax folder, I have bugs that have been filed. I have ideas. Import is

for if I'm importing a bunch of stuff from Trello. I want to review it to make

from Trello. I want to review it to make sure it imported correctly. My inbox is how I get stuff from my phone to my to this whole system. Memories is like things. It's like little snippets that I

things. It's like little snippets that I want to remember. So we can kind of look at what's in here. I think this is safe.

Like I have a affiliate link to the AI evals course that I always forget what it is. So, it's literally just here's my

it is. So, it's literally just here's my affiliate link. This is a task. I don't

affiliate link. This is a task. I don't

know actually know why that's in memories.

>> Real real real quick. What do you mean by inbox? Like you send an email to

by inbox? Like you send an email to yourself over the phone or or how does it >> Yeah. Uh so this this is a little bit of

>> Yeah. Uh so this this is a little bit of a hack and I'm actually moving away from it. So I mentioned I moved a bunch of

it. So I mentioned I moved a bunch of stuff and it broke some things. But um I was using Dropbox to sync my vaults and I'm now moving to Obsidian Sync to sync

my vaults. So, the Obsidian Sync, I can

my vaults. So, the Obsidian Sync, I can use the iOS Obsidian app and I can just access all of this stuff from my phone.

But when I was using Dropbox, I had to set up this is like a iCloud linked folder >> so that I could add to it from my phone and then it would automatically show up here and then I could pull it into my

task system. That was kind of a pain in

task system. That was kind of a pain in the butt. So, I moved from Dropbox to

the butt. So, I moved from Dropbox to Obsidian Sync to make that easier.

>> Got it. Okay. So, basically Obsidian and Cloud Code run your life right now.

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, pretty

much cloud code and obsidian read my life.

>> All right, so let's go back to the writing the blog post task. So like um >> yeah, >> how's it going to help us write this blog post? Yeah.

blog post? Yeah.

>> So I could do this. Let's do this. We're

going to get rid of this dumb checklist that Claude made because I don't like it.

And we're just going to do like Okay, I'm going to talk through I'm just going to like talk out loud while I plan out my blog post. So for context, I'm in the middle of writing this huge cloud code series for people that are

non-technical. And it started with like

non-technical. And it started with like what is cloud code? Why is it different from cloud in the browser? And then the second post in the series was about like how to give claim memory, which if you

want to get into that, all my context files are also here in Obsidian. And

then the third blog post that's coming out this Wednesday is about safety. So

how to use cloud code safely. And then

this one we're going to start together is the fourth article. And this is where I'm going to get into like doing projects with Claude. And so I want to write a blog post where I talk about

like plan mode, auto accept mode. And

then I always want to use examples in my blog post that are related to product managers. And so like in this blog post

managers. And so like in this blog post I might think like let's talk through plan mode and auto accept mode if you were planning a new feature. So I'm

starting to think about like what's my example going to be in the blog post?

And I have an AI product called the interview coach. This is a product where

interview coach. This is a product where in my class where I teach how to conduct effective customer interviews. We do

practice interviews with each other in class and then the students can submit their transcripts and get like detailed feedback on how good of a job they did.

And the thing with this product is it was built for my storybased interview coach or storybased interview class. And

so the coach gives feedback on story-based interviews. And my new

story-based interviews. And my new feature idea is can I extend it to work with non-storybased interviews. So this

is like a feature idea I have. And so in the blog post there's a little meta. I'm

going to use this feature idea to show how I would use plan mode and auto accept mode. Right. So okay I'm gonna

accept mode. Right. So okay I'm gonna this is all I have. This is literally the state of this blog post. This is

real. I have not written a single thing.

And now I'm going to go over to this terminal window on the bottom and I'm going to launch Claude. And this is in the context of my writing vault. And so

my writing vault has a claude MD that talks about how I like to write and how I like to write with Claude. So it has different context than this tasks window. So like in my writing window, I

window. So like in my writing window, I can't type new task. It doesn't know anything about my task system. I have to do that in my tasks window.

>> Got it?

>> So we're going to do this. I don't know why it thinks it's a new folder, but we're going to ignore that for a minute.

And then I'm going to say I want help creating an outline for a new blog post.

I do this in plan mode, which is actually what the blog post is about.

You can find my early thoughts in Oh, see I would not, this is a little weird. I would not do this in the task

weird. I would not do this in the task card. What I would do is I would come to

card. What I would do is I would come to writing. I would go to my claude code

writing. I would go to my claude code series and I would do a new file.

>> Got it.

>> Let's do plan mode.

And that did not go where I wanted it.

So, we're going to move it in plan mode.

And I actually did not tell Cloud enough information because it's not it's going to look for plan mode in the current directory, but the plan mode is actually in claude code. So, we'll see what it comes back with. We'll see if it finds it.

>> Okay. So, basically, you have a CL.

Okay. So ju just real quick, you have a claw.md for your writing vault that has

claw.md for your writing vault that has a bunch of writing styles and like uh you know that kind of stuff, right?

>> Yep.

>> Is that got it?

>> Yeah. So if you look at here on the left, like tasks is a pro that you can think about tasks is like a claude project. I launched this instance of

project. I launched this instance of claude in the context of tasks >> and then I have a writing folder and I launched this instance of claude in the context of the writing folder. So the

writing folder has different rules than the tasks folder. They each have their own cloud MDs. So the cloud MD for tasks explains how the task system works. It

explains how tagging works. It explains

how front matter in Obsidian works. So

that when I just type new task, it knows exactly what to do with that.

>> Whereas my writing folder doesn't have any of that context. It just knows it.

Like you can see here, I told it I want to write a blog post. It found plan mode. It read it. Now it's asking me to

mode. It read it. Now it's asking me to read my style guide. And that's because my cloud MD in my writing folder says before we do anything together, start by reading my writing style guide.

>> Got it. Okay.

>> So, I'm going to go ahead and say yes, it can do that.

>> Do you ever just ask it to like uh skip all the permissions because it's kind of annoying to >> Yeah. You know what I have? So, I just

>> Yeah. You know what I have? So, I just moved everything. Everything used to be

moved everything. Everything used to be in Dropbox and I had all the permissions set up where my tasks could read and edit everything inside tasks and writing could read and everything inside

writing. But because I just moved

writing. But because I just moved everything, those permissions aren't I literally moved everything yesterday.

Uh, and so I haven't copied over those permissions yet. I'm learning like when

permissions yet. I'm learning like when you move things in claude, it kind of breaks things a little bit. Uh, so it's asking me which features do I want to focus on? I actually want to do both.

focus on? I actually want to do both.

Um, what's your intended audience for this post? Product people new to Claude

this post? Product people new to Claude should already know that. That's a

little disappointing.

>> Wait, so so like uh is asking you questions because you prompted to ask your questions? ask me questions because

your questions? ask me questions because it read this plan mode document and it's now like trying to get more information from me to be helpful. Normally I have a

little bit more here, right? This isn't

really enough for Claude to work with yet, but let's let's see what Claude does.

>> Yeah, see it's trying to do too much right out of the gate, but let's see what it does now. I understand the direction. Let me create an outline.

direction. Let me create an outline.

F. It's already got a headline.

Introduce plan mode and auto accept mode. What it is, when to use it, what

mode. What it is, when to use it, what you plan, what it is, the dangers.

[laughter] >> That's great. Yeah,

>> this is kind of nuts, right? Like it

kind of went crazy. Um, so I'm going to tell it went crazy.

>> Uh, it's kind of like, uh, when I use cloud code to like write a product spec, I always wanted to put put the spec in MD file so I can delete a bunch of stuff because it it tends to do too much, you know.

>> Yeah. So, usually, to be honest, usually I have a little bit more. So, let's

let's actually play with this draft a little bit. Um, I would probably give

little bit. Um, I would probably give Claude something like goals help people

new to Claude code do bigger projects.

Claude code uh use planning a new feature as a product manager as an example throughout. And

then we could do I can use my personal experience with expanding the interview coach. I'm going

to ignore typos for now because Cloud won't care.

>> Um, and then, um, I'm going to do something like less about the features, these features,

more about how to get Claude to do good work. And let's see if this helps.

>> Got it.

>> Let's see what it comes back with.

>> So, okay. So after this outline, you're going to ask her to do online research or what's the I can do next?

>> Yeah. So you can see already it came back and it's like, "Oh, okay. I made

too many assumptions."

>> Yeah.

>> Um and it's like, "Okay, now like now is this like the right direction?" So now I might now I what I really want to do is ask Claude like you asked about research. We got to come out of plan

research. We got to come out of plan mode for this. Has anyone else written a blog post about this? and I'll go and I'll go search and see what other blog posts are out there. So, I'll often do

this. I'll often like before I sit down

this. I'll often like before I sit down to write, I want to know what else has been out there. If somebody else has written this article for my audience, I'm not going to write it. I'm just

going to like write a different article and just link to that article. Um, I

want to make sure that I'm writing stuff that's unique.

>> And then now sometimes someone may have written this blog post like in the context of coding and that's fine. Most

of my audience isn't going to read that.

And so, but I can read that article and learn from their experience and then translate it to product management. Um,

so I always use Claude Code to like do searches for me. The other thing I use it for while I'm writing is like I'll make a claim and I'll be like, "Is that claim true?" And then I'll ask Claude

claim true?" And then I'll ask Claude like, "Can you do some academic research for me and see if there's evidence behind this? Like, is this really a true

behind this? Like, is this really a true claim or is it just something that I randomly believe?" So, let's see what

randomly believe?" So, let's see what Claude came back with. So, a lot of people have written about this. Of

course, Anthropic has written about it.

They have great documentation. Most are

written for developers, engineers. Yeah.

Perfect.

>> I think people wrote like technical stuff about plano but not about this use case.

>> Yeah. So then I might ask like okay um how do people search for this kind of content?

What keywords from an SEO standpoint should I keep in mind? I almost never do this to start. I do this at the end, but we can do it to see how it does. Oh,

that's very smart. I I I never asked this question for my blog post, so that's that's that's important. Yeah.

>> And again, it just goes off and does its thing, and I let it do its thing, and the meanwhile, I'll be like over here noodling. I'm like,

noodling. I'm like, >> how am I going to how am I going to structure this blog post? And like this is really stubbed out. There's not

really a blog post here, right? So

>> I might start to think about an outline and be like okay well the introduction needs to be strong hook around value of

doing project work with claude code.

Um then introduce like claude modes plan auto accept um reference

safety article um walkth through detailed example interview coach. So let's see what it

interview coach. So let's see what it came back with. So I found it's really good at keyword research >> like really good at keyword research. I

tend to do this after I've written the article because I really want to write my articles for humans, but then I might tweak some words in my subheaders or my titles to to like target higher volume keywords.

>> What what what is it actually doing? Is

it just using Google searches here or is it actually doing some uh fancy stuff to >> Yeah, you can see it's just doing searches and looking for what's ranking well.

>> Oh, is that what it's doing?

>> Yeah.

>> Oh, interesting. Okay.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay.

>> So, it's sort of my SEO researcher.

>> Interesting. And then I could be like, I've started to stub out an outline in plan.

Can you suggest alternative structures? There's not

alternative structures? There's not enough meat here. It's probably not going to do a very good job here, but >> um we'll see what it does. And so I do this. This is literally how I write. I'm

this. This is literally how I write. I'm

like doing all my thinking really rough.

I'm going back and forth with Claude.

I'll have questions like what do I do?

like how does this work in Claude? Like

I think I know how auto accept mode works, right? But then I'll be writing a

works, right? But then I'll be writing a blog post about it. I'll be like, is that really right? And I literally will just pop over here and be like, Claude, is that are you allowed to do this in auto accept mode? Um, and so that's really nice, too. And I know this is a

little meta. I'm writing a blog post

little meta. I'm writing a blog post about Claude code, but Claude can actually answer questions about anything, right? So, I could be writing

anything, right? So, I could be writing a blog post about how product teams do customer interview analysis and I can still ask Claude, in fact, I wrote a blog post about how about customer

interview analysis with AI. And when I was writing that article, I was constantly asking Claude to look at research for me, like academic research, like what do we know about what is lost

when we rely on AI synthesis? What do we know? And a lot of that came from just

know? And a lot of that came from just asking Claude to do the research for me.

>> Got it. So it's very much two screen uh kind of process. Yeah, they're

definitely using as a thought partner and like a researcher along the way.

>> And so you can see here now Claude came back with like here's some other ways to structure it. So we could do example

structure it. So we could do example first structure, uh problem solution structure, journey structure, like your personal story. And you can see for each it's

story. And you can see for each it's it's kind of like giving me a rough outline. So, what I like about this is

outline. So, what I like about this is like when I write, I usually have a pretty fixed idea of what the structure is in my head. And Claude helps me explore alternatives. So, it's like I'm

explore alternatives. So, it's like I'm comparing and contrasting in the context of writing, which before working with Claude, I would have literally never done that. And then the other thing that

done that. And then the other thing that it really helps me with, and maybe I'll pull up my web browser to show this. Um,

let me think about actually I think I can show it right here. Um the article that I'm publishing this coming Wednesday is on safety. So it's how do I

teach beginners cloud code beginners how to run an LLM safely on their computer.

And you can see I'll show you every it's organized by tier. So like what's the risk of letting it read files and then at the end of every section I include what cla is doing and how you know what

it's doing. So like there's these tables

it's doing. So like there's these tables of like this just indicates if it's reading. There's like cuz like I'm

reading. There's like cuz like I'm assuming most of my readers don't know Unix commands, right? So

>> yeah, probably not using terminal. Yeah.

>> And there's no way I would have written this article. I'll show you at the

this article. I'll show you at the bottom. Look at all these. Look at what

bottom. Look at all these. Look at what we cover. Like it's insane. This blog

we cover. Like it's insane. This blog

post is enor. You can see it's like 8,800 words. And I created this like

8,800 words. And I created this like quick reference commands table. This is

like how Claude reads. This is how it searches beyond your current directory.

This is how it searches the web. This is

how it writes files. This is how it executes code. And like this is an

executes code. And like this is an awesome reference now for people that have never used Claude code. There is no way I would have done this myself.

Claudia.

>> So you're Yeah.

>> I started to generate a list like you can see in my outline like I started to generate a list of like commands as I used Claude like oh this stuff should go

in my document but as I worked with Claude it taught me like oh I also used these other commands and it so this blog post is way more thorough than it would

have been if I had just done it on my own. co-authoring with Claude along

own. co-authoring with Claude along along the way like section by section.

Yeah.

>> Yeah. And then the other thing that I do is like once I get to a complete outline, I actually start writing and I still do all of my own writing. I want

it to be in my voice. I personally like to write and I have I feel like I have a very specific cadence to my writing that like Claude just doesn't really get. It

gets close but not really. And so what I'll do is once I have a really detailed outline, I will write a section. And

then as soon as I'm done with the section, I just pop over here and I'll say like, "Claude, I wrote the intro.

Give me feedback."

>> And then Claude can see the same file I can see, right? So I don't have to cut and paste anything. And then Claude will give me feedback and then it always finds typos and it'll just be like, "Do you want me to fix the typos?" And I can just type yes.

>> Why don't we try it? Can you get it to fix the typos right here? Like does it edit your file?

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. Can you fix the typos in my plan mode?

Got it. Yeah.

>> And it's just going to go and do it. Um,

so you can see here it's showing me a diff of what it's fixing. Um, I don't want it just fixing random typos in my blog post as I write. So, one thing I've taught Claude to do is when we review a

section, first it tells me what's working well. Then it tells me what

working well. Then it tells me what could be better or what could be clear, it does a technical review. Am I saying anything that's technically wrong? And

then the last thing it does is it lists the typos that it found. and it asks me if I want to fix those typos. And that's

just sort of a safety check. Sometimes

like I'm using a word that it thinks is a typo, but it's not. And so it allows me to quickly look down like this is kind of an example. This is one it told me after the fact. But when we're doing our section by section review, it'll be

like here's what I want to change. And

then I can just say yes, change it all.

Or I can be like yes, change it all, but don't change this one.

>> Got it. Got it. Got it.

>> So I kind of still keep like safety guardrails on claude before it just starts editing my blog post.

>> Interesting. It's interesting that you still Okay, so you still manually write the actual blog post from a detailed outline. You still write it your

outline. You still write it your >> Yeah, I've experimented with letting Claude write stuff.

>> Um I don't like the voice and Claude knows a lot about my writing. Like I

have my entire product talk archives in here. I have taken the time to develop a

here. I have taken the time to develop a really good writing style guide. For me,

good writing has a cadence that like you can hear. And that's the part of my

can hear. And that's the part of my writing like I just can't get Claude to get 100% right. And then I also like to write to figure out what I think. And so

like I don't want to outsource all of that to Claude because I want to force myself to do the thinking myself.

>> Got it. Got it.

>> I'm using Claude almost like a sparring partner. So like here's how I'm thinking

partner. So like here's how I'm thinking about it. What do you think? Oh, I don't

about it. What do you think? Oh, I don't really like that. What if we try this other way? Um and then I do that

other way? Um and then I do that throughout the whole construction of the blog post.

>> Yeah. It's like having a editor and a researcher and like you know just kind they're sitting there with you, right?

>> But like full-time, right? It's not like I did everything and then you edit it.

We're doing it very collaboratively.

>> And then the other piece that I really like is that the way that I used to write, I used to write like a 2 to 3,000word blog post in like three or four days. And a reason why it would

four days. And a reason why it would take so long is I would write a section and writing is exhausting, right? And so

at the end of writing a section, I'd be like, I'm going to go check my email.

and then I'd go get distracted for an hour and then I come back and write another section. But when I'm writing

another section. But when I'm writing with Claude, as soon as we finish the review of a section, Claude's always like, "Are you ready for phase two?" And

I'm like, "Yeah, [clears throat] okay. I

guess I am ready for phase two." So just having Claude like poke me, I maintain momentum. And so I now a lot of my blog

momentum. And so I now a lot of my blog posts are a lot more in-depth. They're a

lot more detailed. They're getting

longer. Um like you can see this blog post is pretty darn long. But you'll see there's there is literally no fluff.

Like I challenge people. This article is coming out on November 12th. Um, go read it. You can tell me if you think there's

it. You can tell me if you think there's any fluff in it. Like to me, this is just a very detailed guide for how to work with Claude safely. And I wrote all

of this myself. It's 9,000 words and I wrote it in one and a half days.

>> Wow.

>> Like that is insane to me.

>> Okay, let let me ask you like a few questions about this process. Yeah.

>> So, so you have one window open for writing, do you just uh do you ever clear the context or you just keep keep going and and you let >> That's a really good That's a really good question. When I'm working on an

good question. When I'm working on an outline, like when we're developing, so like in this writing exercise, we're developing an outline, I try to keep all of it in the context of the same conversation.

>> Okay?

>> There will be times like I'll keep an eye on whether or not it's going to want to compact the conversation. I always

try to keep Claude from compacting. Like

if it looks like that's getting close, what I'll do is I'll be like, "Claude, we're going to run out of context window. Let's write a summary of where

window. Let's write a summary of where we are that you can read in when I clear the context window." And the reason why I do that is I want oversight on how Claude is compacting the conversation.

Whereas, if you use the compact, like if you just let Claude use its own compact tool when you run out, I find that it loses a lot of context and detail that I don't want it to lose. So, one thing that I've done, I don't always do this

with writing, but I always like when I'm working on a project with Claude, in fact, that needs to go in this blog post. So, I'm glad we're talking through

post. So, I'm glad we're talking through this. Uh, I have Claude create this

this. Uh, I have Claude create this document called process notes. And as

we're working, if it looks like we're getting towards the end of the compact, the context window, I'll stop and have Claude update process notes. And process

notes is just a text file that's like, here's what we did in every session. so

that I have a history of what we've done in the decisions that we've made. And

then sometimes Claude like just loses stuff in the context window. I can be always be like, can you just search process notes? Like I feel like we

process notes? Like I feel like we already made this decision. Um and so this is a habit I've gotten into whenever I work with Claude and anything meaty.

>> We're constantly co-creating process notes together. And I'm getting to the

notes together. And I'm getting to the point where like I have a a process for my process notes where I'm gonna write a sub agent that's my document that Claude

will just call to write those process notes when we're running out of context window.

>> Okay, got it. [laughter]

You've gone to like uh this is like inception. You have like

inception. You have like >> Yeah.

>> processes for I mean this is the hard part, right? Like when the context

part, right? Like when the context window fills up, bad things happen. Like

I think you waste a lot of work. Claude

loses details.

>> Yeah. He gets dumber. it just gets dumber. And so I feel like it's our job,

dumber. And so I feel like it's our job, at least for now, to like >> maintain this process so that when Claude resets and its memory gets wiped, it can pick up where you left off and

you'll be fine. Anthropic has tried to build that in with that compact conversation feature, but it's it's not very good. So I like to I like to manage

very good. So I like to I like to manage it myself a little bit more.

>> Well, I think that's the thing with this uh this like that that's the thing with clock code. It just like it's it's

clock code. It just like it's it's really kind of made for power users to be honest like who really want to personalize every everything like it's not super it's not super intuitive to use if you're a complete beginner but

you have to like go into the rabbit hole >> and it gets more and more powerful.

>> You know what I like about it though for product people is that like using cloud code right now and especially pushing the boundaries with cloud code is living on the edge of what's possible today.

And I feel like if we're going to build with AI, like as product people, if we're going to build AI into our products, like we should be living on that edge. And so like even just the

that edge. And so like even just the stuff we talked about with context windows, I wouldn't have learned any of that if I hadn't been in cloud code all day every day. And so now when I go work on like my AI product, when I'm working

on my interview coach, I have like a depth of experience of understanding how to manage a context window that there's no way I would have developed otherwise.

And so like yeah, like in the long run, is this how we're going to work with LLMs? Probably not. Like there'll be

LLMs? Probably not. Like there'll be tooling around it and the labs will get better at managing the context for us.

But like as product people, we can't wait for that. We're building AI into our products today. So I feel like we have to be living on that edge so we can build our products on the edge as well.

>> Yeah. You got to build on the edge. You

got to learn the latest info.

>> Yeah.

>> So that's kind of uh I I just want to kind of talk about the context window thing a little bit more. So you know so so context is like everything for how effective these LMS work right. So I

just want to talk about the three the three layers of context that you talked about in your previous blog post.

>> Yeah.

>> And uh you don't have to maybe share your cloud MD file but maybe like talk about maybe start with the highest layer and talk about what you put in there and then and then kind of like you know >> Yeah. So I actually have that article

>> Yeah. So I actually have that article right here. Let's see. Let's see what

right here. Let's see. Let's see what state it's in. So this article is life.

You can find it at producttalk.org. And

in this article, I just talk about like the opening hook is this story about how I just got sick of trying to get Claude and chat GPT to like be reliably good.

And I realized that like one of the challenges is that in order for Claude to be good, it needs to know all about me and my business. It needs to know that I'm a product discovery coach. It

needs to know that I write at Product Talk. It needs to know that my audience

Talk. It needs to know that my audience is crossunctional product teams. It needs to know that I have a course business and what all those products are. It even needs to know things like

are. It even needs to know things like who I work with, right? In order for me to say like not only in my task window, I can't I can add tasks to my to-do

list, but I can also say create a Trello card on Wena's board and Wena is my admin, right? And so I can be like

admin, right? And so I can be like create a TR or I can even better I can create a task file in my system in Markdown and then say create a Trello

card on Wenna's board using this task.

So it's like in my system I'm creating a task for Willena and then Claude goes and pushes it to her Trello board. But

okay, that only works if Claude has the context like who's Wena and what's her Trello board and like what's a task, right?

>> Yeah.

>> So in order to get this like I wrote some pretty lazy stuff new task blah blah blah blah like in order for that to work Claude has to have this view that we're looking at doesn't have images but

I just explained this idea that every conversation starts from scratch. We

have to create memory. Memory has three layers. You asked about the three

layers. You asked about the three layers. The first one is my global

layers. The first one is my global preferences.

>> Let me actually pop over to the web because I can show some of my CloudMD files pretty safely.

>> Okay.

>> So, this is my global cloud MD. The

start of it. Um, I can zoom in a little bit.

>> Perfect. Yeah.

>> Um, this top section I write about in the blog post is just a little thing I learned is that like I don't write my Claude MDs anymore. Whenever I'm working with Claude, when we're done working, I

say, "Hey, Claude, what did you learn about working with me? Like, what should we add to the Claude MD so this goes smoother next time."

>> And that's been awesome because I don't have to maintain this file anymore.

Claude does. But you can see like I've just defined some personal preferences.

Like I always want to plan before Claude does anything. I never let Cla Claude

does anything. I never let Cla Claude just do stuff. Um, and I do plan at multiple levels. You could saw that with

multiple levels. You could saw that with the blog post. Like I start with just really rough thoughts. We work our way to an outline. Once I have an outline, we start writing. So there's just this

this file is across all my projects, coding, writing, tasks, everything. I

just want Claude to know like this is what I like. And it's not very long.

This file doesn't go much further behind be beyond this. It's pretty short. I

just have a little section on what how I prefer to get feedback from Claude. And

it's really simple. And this lives, you can see here, it lives in my local user directory. So on my Mac it's like tilda

directory. So on my Mac it's like tilda ttorus and thencloud cloudmd.

>> Yeah. Do you put like theres as a product coach and like you know here's my business and all that.

>> All I don't put any of that here because this file is going to get loaded in the context window every single time you use claud.

>> Got it.

>> So you only want to put stuff in here >> that you always want it to follow. And

so like if I'm using cloud to like brainstorm Christmas gifts for my husband, Claude does not need to know about product talk.

[laughter and snorts] So I don't want that here, right? But no matter what, >> you want to keep this short. Yeah.

>> Yeah. This is literally global. So you

want to keep it short. It's going to go in every single context window. And like

I ask Claude all the time, can my dog eat this food? Like Claude doesn't need to know about product talk for those stupid queries.

>> Right. Okay. Got it.

>> Like what's really important is you have to keep the context window as clean as possible.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. And so this literally is just my global rules. But you'll see later if we

global rules. But you'll see later if we just scroll down, I have project specific instructions. So this is

specific instructions. So this is actually my writing cla MD. And in my writing cla MD, I have like it says at the start of each section, read my writing style guide. This is actually

old. I moved things out of Dropbox. But

old. I moved things out of Dropbox. But

if you remember, if I go back to the terminal, which is hard to do with this sharing thing here, um when I ran um sorry, here when I said, "Let's work on

a blog post together," the very first thing Claw did was it went and read my writing style guide.

>> That's right. Yeah.

>> And it's somewhere in here. Yeah. And

that's because here it says at the start of every session, read the writing style guide.

>> Okay.

>> And then this is where I get into my rules about writing. So Claude is a thought partner, not a writer. You're

acting as an editor. You can do some research and development. And this

document is also not very long. It's

really just telling Claude, "This is how we write together."

>> Okay.

>> One thing that is in my global claude MD, which I don't, let's see if I have a screenshot of it somewhere, is [snorts] this idea of context. So I have my I

have my context files defined. So I've

created little markdown files. And the

key is they're little. So I have a lot of them because I want to I want to mix and match them so that I can tell Claude which files matter for the task at hand

and it doesn't have to read all of my context every time. So I have a business profile that just is like this is what my business does. Here's where you can find my product descriptions. Here's

where you can find my marketing channels. Here's where you can learn

channels. Here's where you can learn about my team. I can show you that one.

But it basically is telling Claude where to find more details in all these files.

And so I think this blog post has a screenshot of that. Yeah. So this is my global cloudmd. We already looked at

global cloudmd. We already looked at this top part. You can see at the bottom I'm telling it here's where you can find reference context files. And I basically tell it specifically

only use these files if they're relevant to what I'm asking you about.

>> So if I'm asking you about something related to my business, go look at my business profile. And if I'm asking you

business profile. And if I'm asking you something personal, go look at my personal profile. And then you

personal profile. And then you >> Okay, this makes sense. So you don't have to like load a lot of into the default context. Yeah. So you don't

default context. Yeah. So you don't crowd the context.

>> Exactly. So like if I ask it, I have a product file all about my storybased customer interview course. So if I ask it like, hey, let's work on the landing page for my storybased customer interview course. It already knows where

interview course. It already knows where to find details about this course. It

already knows details about my company.

It already knows details about my target audience. I don't have to tell it any of

audience. I don't have to tell it any of that stuff. And it's because I've given

that stuff. And it's because I've given it an index of context files so it can just go pull in the relevant stuff.

>> Wow. Okay. But don't you feel like uh there's going to be like too many files to manage or like I guess you you just make cla update your context files, right? Is that [laughter]

right? Is that [laughter] >> So I do in this article I talk about this. By the way, this article has a

this. By the way, this article has a really fun use case of like how to use cloud to do a competitive analysis. So

you can see here I'm having Claude like >> this isn't for me. I used 11 Labs as my as if that was my company. Um, and it's generating like uh let's see if I can find it. I don't know if I'm going to

find it. I don't know if I'm going to find it. But here's the goal. Like the

find it. But here's the goal. Like the

key is to give Claude just enough to go find what it needs when it needs it. And

part of this article is about like, okay, well, how do I maintain all this stuff? Like I have a ton of files now.

stuff? Like I have a ton of files now.

How do I keep it current? And so what I do is I have this section about like, okay, how do I keep it up to date? The

way we're going to keep it up to date is at the end of every session with Claude, I literally say, "What did you learn about me that we should add to a context file?" And then we have a conversation

file?" And then we have a conversation about where to add it. Should it go in a cloud MD? Should it go in one of these

cloud MD? Should it go in one of these LM context files? Um, like what's the right place? And then I'm working with

right place? And then I'm working with Claude to make sure like Claude wants to jam everything into your CloudMD. You

don't want that. That's getting loaded in every conversation. So I work with Claude to be like, "Hey, it seems like that should go in my marketing channels file. Why don't we add that there?"

file. Why don't we add that there?"

>> Got it.

>> So I think about it as like information about me and my business goes in a context file. Whereas my working

context file. Whereas my working preferences like this is how me and Claude work together goes in a cloud MD.

>> So basically, yeah, this is a really important tip. Like after every

important tip. Like after every conversation, you ask Claude, how can you make the context better? And you

have all your contexts in the LM context folder with a bunch of sub subfolders and files.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. Yeah. Wait, so how much are you playing this uh cloud employees? They

sound pretty useful. How much are you paying? [laughter] 200 bucks a month.

paying? [laughter] 200 bucks a month.

>> Uh yeah, I'm on the $100 a month plan.

>> Okay.

>> So you can see I'll show you here in in Obsidian. You can see all my context

Obsidian. You can see all my context files. So like for my business, I have a

files. So like for my business, I have a target audience file, a marketing profile, a list of my differentiators, my company overview, my business model.

>> I didn't like sit down and create this all one day. That would have been tedious and horrible.

>> I basically anytime I felt like I needed to describe something to Claude, instead of just doing it that one time and then having to repeat it later, I'd be like, "Oh, Claude, in order to do this task, I

feel like you need to know about my differentiators. Maybe interview me."

differentiators. Maybe interview me."

And I literally claude will interview you can just be like interview me about my business and then it will ask you a bunch of questions and then it will write a context file for you based on what you learned.

>> Got it. Okay.

>> Um so that's that's a lot of how I did most of this stuff.

>> Okay. Yeah. As long as you just sat down one day and made all these folders, right? It's not

right? It's not >> No, I add to it like gradually over time.

>> So what about like uh Okay, last question. Let's say I'm just overwhelmed

question. Let's say I'm just overwhelmed by all this stuff. like this is like [laughter] >> like I want to learn stuff but like it sounds like you really personalize it for your life.

>> Yeah.

>> Like what are your three tips to get started? Let's say I already use cloud

started? Let's say I already use cloud code for like co coding but I want to use it to manage my life.

>> The first thing is with context you don't have to get here overnight. Like

>> I think the simplest rule is whenever you find yourself explaining context to Claude, stop and think about am I ever going to have to explain this context to Claude again? And honestly, the answer

Claude again? And honestly, the answer is probably yes. So instead of explaining it to Claude, change tasks just for a minute and just be like, "Claude, I need to explain some context to you. Let's capture it in a context

to you. Let's capture it in a context file."

file." >> Got it. Yep, that makes sense.

>> You probably need to think through like at a minimum, do you work with Claude at work and in personal stuff? Then maybe

set up a work folder and a personal folder. That's it, right? And then I

folder. That's it, right? And then I think from there, you can just do it iteratively over time. And that's what I did. Like I literally never sat down and

did. Like I literally never sat down and just created all these files. I just And some of them are just stubs, right?

They're not that complete. Um but I know I'll add to them with time. And then

this file we're looking at, this profile, I never wrote a word of it.

Every time I have Claude add a context file, I say, "What index needs to be updated?" And it just figures it out.

updated?" And it just figures it out.

>> Got it. Okay. So maybe like the process here is like think about your weekly calendar. What's like the most like

calendar. What's like the most like what's taking up most of your time? And

then and then uh try to you know you have Claus as your employee try to get it to you know give a bunch of instructions backgrounds context have it save a bunch of files and then just work with it to start doing stuff and then at

the end of every conversation ask it to like add more stuff to context or like improve his prompt that that's kind of [laughter] that's kind of what you do right >> yeah okay I think there's two steps to

this first is I have worked with an admin for like 10 years so I'm really good at like looking at things that I can delegate And for anybody who's ever delegated something to another person,

what makes that work well is to have like a good like standard operating procedure for the task you're giving them, right? It's not you can't just say

them, right? It's not you can't just say to someone another human like, "Hey, go do this thing and have them expect them to be able to do it the way that you would do it." And so if you want them to do it the way that you would do it, you

have to provide for them like a process like here's how I do it. Here's the

outcome that I want. And so like I do this with my admin but I record videos.

I record a video of how I do things. She

then looks at the video. She creates

like a Trello checklist for herself and then that becomes like our standard operating procedure. So we've been doing

operating procedure. So we've been doing this for years. And so I'm already good at this muscle of like what can I delegate? So when I started doing this

delegate? So when I started doing this with LLMs, I thought about it as like okay well if Claude is just a person on my team, how would I delegate to Claude?

And so I started by literally looking at my own Trello board and like what do I need to work on today? And then it for every task I got in the habit of like how can Claude help with this.

>> Got it. Got it.

>> And then there's pieces for some tasks like I don't want to automate them. I

enjoy doing them. Like I enjoy writing.

I don't want Claude to write for me. So

like I don't want to automate that. So I

think about like how can Claude augment this. What do I do while writing that

this. What do I do while writing that Claude could accelerate? well, research

and web searches um and like coming up with alternative analogies. And then

there's other tasks like send this stupid receipt to my finance system. I

don't need to ever do that. I could

automate that. So then I look at like what do I have to do to give Claude context to be able to automate this completely. Um so

completely. Um so >> okay, >> I didn't even start with the things that take the most time. I literally just forced myself all day, every day, every time I do a new task to think about like

how can Claude help.

>> Got it. All right, man. That that that that's a great tip to end on. I I think.

[laughter] >> All right.

>> Yeah. Just hire hire $100 employee and then uh get it to help on different things. Yeah.

things. Yeah.

>> Yeah. And I mean, it's funny that I even thought twice about upgrading from $20 to $100. I started on the $20 plan. I

to $100. I started on the $20 plan. I

only had to bump to the $100 plan when I was doing both a lot of coding in one week and a lot of writing in one week.

So, it's like I was literally pushing hard on Claude for a long time. So, you

can get pretty far on the $20 plan.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And hopefully

Anthropic gets his limits together, you know.

>> Yeah. [laughter]

>> So, yeah.

>> Okay. So, to find your detailed cloud code guides, just go to producttalk.org, right? Is that the right site? Yeah,

right? Is that the right site? Yeah,

it's all we can take a look right here.

It's productt talk.org and it's all like all my recent articles. You can see what is claude. Stop repeating yourself.

is claude. Stop repeating yourself.

Probably by the time this episode goes out that safety article will be live.

>> Awesome. I'll I'll definitely read it.

Yeah [laughter] >> there's a ton here. I'm going to be writing a lot more. Like a lot of my goal for the next several weeks is just to help make Claude code accessible for

people for nontechnical people and to really start to show the power of like pair working with Claude. Um so if listeners were like excited about this episode definitely check out this

series. It's been a fun to write and I'm

series. It's been a fun to write and I'm I'm even going to be hosting Claude code office hours. So if you want to even

office hours. So if you want to even come and get help uh I'm going to be doing that every month.

>> Awesome. Awesome. You should should be there. You should be Anthropic exposing.

there. You should be Anthropic exposing.

Yeah, [laughter] that sounds great.

Yeah. Yeah.

>> I know. Someone asked me if I was being sponsored by Anthropic, and I'm not. Uh

if I was, I would disclose that. I

really am just a big fan.

>> Yeah, I'm a really big fan, too. I'm a

really big fan of like Capors and the team and what they're building and um yeah, it's funny because they're they're really kind of trying to build towards the coding use case, but like you know, there's so much more you can do to build a really good agent.

>> Yeah.

>> Cool. All right, Teresa, thank thanks so much for your time.

>> Thanks for having me. This has been fun.