how i built this site
when i started this project earlier this week, the goal wasn’t really to make a new website. it was to figure out how we, at vanilla, could use claude code and figma’s mcp to help the pm and design teams prototype locally and publish high-fidelity prototypes for feedback earlier in the process.
i started by watching a few videos that showed the workflow in action:
videos
anthropic has the kind of product building culture i admire.
before diving in, i installed claude code on my own machine and opened a few old studio and personal projects, some using flat-file cms or other outdated setups. it was pretty wild watching claude code scan through everything, explain the stack, the purpose, and even how to get each one running again.
from there, i wrote a short prompt about what i was trying to do: build a personal site that worked as both a portfolio and a digital garden, and use it as a way to teach myself what i’ve missed from the last decade of web development. i originally thought about using jekyll and github pages, but claude convinced me that just diving into the deep end was the better path.
while it took me a while to get claude code running and to find my way around vscode, i eventually got there, set up an astro project, built the repo, and connected figma to claude via mcp. i was a little disappointed to see figma mcp still relies on screenshots (though the output is much better than before).
in my claude.md file, i included not just technical instructions but a reminder that this project was meant to help me learn. plan mode ended up being the most useful part. it breaks everything down step by step and explains what’s actually happening.
one thing that surprised me was how easy it is to go overboard. early on i got lost in filtering and categorization options before realizing i just wanted something that felt simple, alive, and mine.
james ayres, our design engineer, had already been experimenting with using our own codebase and design system to make prototypes. this week, cree (one of our eng directors), james, and i are starting to roll out that same process with the rest of the team.