Start simple and use git branches early
A non-coder lists lessons from six months: start simple, stop working on main, plan features first, and don't let it become a 14-hour-a-day habit.
Claude Code: real stories
12 items
Understand the auth code your AI wrote
A beginner had auth, a Postgres schema and deployment running in a weekend, then realised they couldn't tell whether the server-side permission checks were secure.
Track AI credits like money mid-project
A builder says they ran out of Claude Code credits and expected the remaining cloud credits to last only a few prompts.
Plan sessions around Claude Code usage limits
A builder hit the Claude Code usage limit within the first hour and asked which tool keeps going.
Keep one project brief every AI tool can read
Rotating between Codex, Claude Code and Cursor to dodge limits meant repeating the same project explanation in each one.
Budget for limits when picking an AI coding plan
Frustrated with how quickly limits disappeared, a mobile developer moved to a different paid plan to finish a project.
Checkpoint big agent jobs before a usage limit hits
A multi-agent Claude Code workflow stalled at about 90% done when the usage cap hit, followed by a long wait.
Move a Lovable project into your own repo early
Over about three weeks a PM shipped an education platform, started in Lovable, hit its limits, moved to their own repo with Claude Code, and then rebuilt on Next.js for SEO.
Check where your backend lives before you build
A non-technical builder lists beginner mistakes: fixes that broke other things, burned credits, and finding that the Lovable Cloud backend couldn't simply be moved off-platform.
Block destructive database commands from AI agents
A user who believed the AI couldn't touch their database watched it run a delete command with --force and wipe Firestore.
Be careful opening untrusted repos in Claude Code
Check Point disclosed two CVEs where malicious Claude Code project settings (hooks, MCP config, base URL) could run commands or send the API key elsewhere. Anthropic patched both before disclosure.
Protect secrets from hijacked npm packages
Malicious versions of the Nx build tool were published to npm; the install script used locally installed AI coding CLIs to search the machine for secrets and wallets and uploaded them to GitHub.