On February 24th, 2025, Claude Code

released and not a single day has gone

by where it hasn't been the best AI

coding tool on the entire market. Since

then, I have been using Claude Code 12

hours a day without fail. I've

absolutely mastered it. I've built and

released fullcale apps making over

$300,000 a year now. And I've also built

up this entire YouTube channel, over

50,000 subscribers, almost exclusively

talking about Claude Code. Over that

time, I've learned eight major lessons

using Claude Code, many of which I've

never heard anyone else talk about

before. Whether you're a day one

beginner or you're an absolute Claude

Code professional, I promise you, you're

going to learn a ton in this video and

be a master by the end of it. Now, let's

lock in and get into it. So, the first

lesson I learned is is the extension

inside Visual Studio Code is the

absolute best way to get the most out of

Claude Code. There are many different

ways to use Claude right now. You can

use it through the CLI. You can use it

through the CLI inside a cursor. You can

use it extension inside cursor. You can

use it on the web. You can use it in the

mobile app. They've made Claude Code

very accessible many, many different

ways. Out of all the ways you can use it

for, and I've used it for hundreds of

hours. Every single way you can use it.

The extension inside of Visual Studio

Code is the best experience. I've tried

it. The CLI and cursor. I think most

people are using the CLI in cursor to

use claude code. I've had many issues

with that. One is the UI is just better

inside the extension than in the CLI.

You can open up multiple chats very

easily, switch between them. It's

formatted incredibly well. It's very

easy to turn on and off a lot of the

features, get options like the slash

commands opened up really easy. It's

just a way better experience than the

CLI. But the reason why I use the

extension inside of Visual Studio Code

specifically is I've just had zero

issues with it at all. As you probably

know, Cursor and a lot of these other

AIDes are just forks of Visual Studio

Code. So, Visual Studio Code is just

going to have the most up-to-date

updates and work the best out of all of

them. I have a lot of time when I use

the other AI IDE where the extension

just doesn't open up correctly. It opens

up in different places. It doesn't work

correctly. I have never had a single

issue using the extension inside of just

your basic free Visual Studio Code. It's

completely free. You don't need to pay

anything monthly for it. Download Visual

Studio Code for free. Get the Claude

Code extension, which is right in the

extension store over here on the left.

You open that up. I promise you're going

to have the best experience ever with

Claude Code that you can get anywhere

else. My second tip for you is this.

Stop listening to all the gurus. You

don't need to use every single feature

inside Claude Code. Every time a new

feature releases, such as MCP, sub

agent, slash commands, you get all of

these videos, the top 15 slash commands

you need to implement. Here are 40 sub,

this is my favorite one. Here are 40 sub

aents you need to implement in order to

get the most out of Claude Cod. these

outrageous videos of people implementing

literally a hundred different sub aents

that you manually call as you go as

you're building your apps. Stop

listening to all these people. I get the

best experience out of Claude Code when

I just keep it as simple as humanly

possible. There's a lot of gurus in

content that will just make up these

workflows that actually don't add any

value. They just complicate the hell out

of everything you're doing just so they

have some more content to build. But I

promise you, the main message I have in

all my videos and all my live streams is

just keep it simple. When I'm using

claude code, I'm very rarely using any

sort of slash commands. I at most just

use kind of clear or new conversation.

I'm not setting up these complex sub

aents where oh, I'm in this specific

scenario. Let me spin up these four sub

aents. You're just complicating things.

Claude code in their main model sonnet

45 is so frigin smart it can do most of

the things you do with sub aents on its

own and if it needs sub aents it calls

them for you automatically you don't

need to create a hundred different

complicated custom sub aents to get the

most out of cloud code I don't use a

single MCP I know there's some good MCPs

out there people tell me X is great you

want the most up-to-date documentation I

think Sonnet 45 is so smart that a lot

of the time when I say hey can you build

got this new feature functionality for

me. It's able to find the documentation

by itself. I don't need MCPS for every

single piece of documentation out there.

For instance, the other day I asked

Claude Code to build an app using the

Kimmy K2 thinking API. This was a brand

new model that just dropped literally

that day. So I came here, I said,

"Please

build me an app with Kimmy K2 thinking."

I hit enter and it just went and found

the documentation. It just searched the

web and found the documentation in a

second. I don't need to set up four MCP

servers so that it has the latest

documentation. The models are smart

enough. If you are adding 20 MCPS and 30

sub aents and using 40 different custom

slash commands, I promise you, you're

over complicating things. For 99.9%

of people, Claude code just works out of

the box. So stop listening to all the AI

gurus. All you need to do to get the

most out of clawed code is just tell it

what you want to build and it will

figure it out on its own how to build

things. So tip two, keep it simple.

99.9% of people don't need MCPS and 100

sub aents and 30 different slash

commands. Keep it simple. Tell Claude

Code what you want to build and it will

build it for you. Just as a side note

before we get into tip three, make sure

to leave a like if you're learning

anything at all. Subscribe. Turn on

notifications. All I do is create

amazing videos around using AI. Tip

number three. One of the biggest

complaints I get is that Claude Code's

kind of pricey and credits go by

quickly. Well, here's a tip for you. I

use this and this gets me like 10x more

usage out of Claude Code. You want to go

into your model picker. You want to

select models. You do slashmodel and you

want to choose Haiku. Haiku is the

cheapest, quickest model for Claude

Code. But here's the thing. Here's how

it works. When you select haiku, when

you select haiku, it actually still uses

sonnet 45 for all the planning, right?

So when you're in plan mode, which is

shift tab, shift tab, when you make the

plan, it actually uses sonnet to build

the plan, but then it uses haiku to do

the execution. So if I build out a

feature here, let's just say add a dark

mode to the app and hit enter. It's

going to use sonnet to build the plan

for this feature. But when I hit yes on

the execution, it's going to use Haik

coup for the implementation. And as long

as you have a nice thoroughly detailed

plan, which is what Sonnet 45 does, you

don't need the most advanced models to

do the implementation. Haiku can handle

it really, really well. And by using it

this way, Sonnet for the planning, Haiku

for the implementation, you're going to

be so efficient when it comes to using

credits and tokens. So, you want to make

sure if you're on the $17 plan or even

the $100 a month plan, make sure you do

model and make sure you select Haiku.

You're going to get Sonnet for planning,

Haiku for implementation, and that will

be just as good as using the default

Sonnet for everything. I promise you.

Tip number four, and this might be the

most important out of all of them to be

quite honest with you, and that is make

the most of your time when the AI is

working. I saw this tweet from Y

Combinator yesterday and it literally

made me sick to my stomach. They're

releasing an IDE called chat ID where

while the AI works, it brings up like

video games in gambling in Plinko as the

AI work and it shows these guys just

playing video games every time the AI

works. This is quite literally a the

worst product ever made in history, but

b the stupidest possible thing you could

be doing while your AI works. 80% of the

time while you're vibe coding, you're in

a mode like this where the AI is

building a plan or it's implementing

code. And if you use this 80% of the

time to do what vast majority of people

do, which is play video games, get

dopamine hits, scroll Tik Tok, watch

Netflix, look at Instagram reels, look

at thirst traps on Instagram, you are

doing yourself and your app such a big

disservice. Here is what I do when I

have my AI working for me. While it's

vibe coding, while it's bu building

code, whatever it is, I have the desktop

app for chat GBT open. You can have

Claude, GB, GBT, Gemini, whatever your

favorite model is just to chat with.

Have the desktop app open. And what I do

is I tell it I want it to be my

co-pilot, CEO, product manager for my

app. And anytime the AI is working, I'm

literally talking to the AI in my

desktop app and saying, "Hey, this is

the feature I'm working on. What do you

think? What should we add next? What

should the road map look like? What

should my first tweet be like?" I'll

even just ask for life advice. I'll be

like, "Hey, I'm thinking about picking

up meditation. What's the best way to do

that?" And now this makes that 80% of

the time the AI is working inside Claude

Code so much more productive. I'm coming

up with new ideas for features. I'm

coming up with improvements for the app.

I'm coming up with marketing for the

app. I'm improving my life. So instead

of scrolling Tik Tok and getting

dopamine hits or playing Plinko or

gambling on the football game that

night, you are using chat GPT or

whatever AI chat model you want to use

to plan and improve and get your app in

a better place. If you do this and you

spend 80% of the time being productive

doing this, I promise you, you are going

to be you're going to be so much more

productive. You'll be so much more

mentally healthy. If you spend 80% of

your day scrolling Tik Tok, your brain's

melting out of your ears. You're going

to be so much more mentally healthy

doing this. You're going to get so much

more done. And you're going to be ahead

of the 99% of your competition that just

wastes their day doom scrolling while

their AI works. If you want to win, you

need to take this tip. Do not let

yourself doom scroll while the AI works.

Instead, open up a co-pilot, CEO,

product manager chat and take advantage

of it every single time. Here is my next

tip for you. You need to have a good

Claude rules file. So, you need to have

a good claude.md file. These are the

rules that get sent to Claude with every

single prompt you make. And if you have

the right rule set, you're going to get

so much better performance out of Claude

code. Over my hundreds and hundreds of

hours of using Claude Code over the last

year, these are the nine rules I use.

These are the nine rules I've put in

where I get the absolute best

performance out of Claude where I really

don't get any more issues or errors or

bugs anymore. I don't get any of those

nasty bug circles where you're just

going around and around in circles. Here

are the nine rules. I will paste them

down below so you can just copy and

paste them and put them into your own

clawed rules file. Just as a quick

overview, uh, number one, I make sure it

slows down, thinks through the entire

problem, and reads the codebase for

relevant files, and builds out an entire

to-do list for itself anytime I give it

a prompt. Sometime these models are just

lazy. I'm going to be honest. Sometimes

all the models are just very, very lazy.

This first rule prevents it from getting

lazy. It makes a detailed to-do list

based on all relevant files that has to

follow step by step. I make it stop and

give me explanations before every single

little change it makes. One, this is

just good for me because I like to

understand how the entire app works, but

two, again, this is helping the model

because it's forcing it to slow down

instead of being lazy and speeding

through problems. It forc to slow down

and explain issues to me, which actually

makes it smarter itself. I say make

every task and code change you make as

simple as humanly possible. I have too

many times have given claw a task and

then it goes and it makes a change that

impacts 20 other features that I then

have to play whack-a-ole with to fix all

the other features. This rule makes it

so it keeps it simple and it only

touches the code and files it needs to

touch to fix any issues. Then I

reiterate a lot of the important points

in rules 8 to n here. Do not be lazy.

Never be lazy. If your context window

starts filling up, it starts getting

lazy. It starts hallucinating. This

prevents that from happening. No

temporary fixes. I see this a lot with

every AI where I'll say, "Here's an

error." And it'll do like the most

temporary fix humanly possible. This

makes it so only does long-term fixes

that address the root cause. And again,

it stresses simplicity, simplicity,

simplicity, so it doesn't overthink it

and write way too much code. These nine

rules have improved the performance of

Claude by 10x. It really is amazing. So,

make sure copy paste this, create a new

claw.md file in your project, paste them

in, and you're good to go. You'll get

way better performance. My next tip fits

in with the general theme I think of

this video, which is keep it as simple

as humanly possible. This tip is prompt

engineering is the most overrated

concept in history. There are 28,000

videos on YouTube telling you how to

prompt Claude the right way and get the

most out of the prompting. Throw it all

away. It doesn't matter. Prompt

engineering is so overrated. Again, the

models in the app have gotten so good

and so smart. You don't need to do these

complex structures of prompts, right? I

see this all the time where they'll be

like, "Okay, in order to get the most

out of clawed code, you need to first

have a context section where you explain

everything inside your app." And then

you next part is you go a UI section and

the next part you do a UI section where

you explain in detail what you want the

UI to be. And then the next part you

have a database section. You explain

clearly what the scheme and it gives you

this crazy long prompt engineering

technique. You have to do it. No, no,

no, no, no. I think it's actually the

opposite. You should keep these prompts

as simple as humanly possible. Clog,

just tell it exactly what you want to

do. For example, I'm building out this

AI journaling app, right? Say I want to

add a folder structure to the app where

I want to be able to add different

journal entries into different folders.

A lot of the gurus on YouTube and on X

will tell you, oh, you got to use prompt

engineering here. Make sure you include

all the context, these 40 different

structures and spin up the sub. No, just

tell it what you want. I want a folder

system in the app so I can put entries

into folders. That's it. Hit enter.

You're good to go. And as long as you

have it in plan mode, so shift tab

twice, it's going to figure out the

context for you. It's going to look at

the right files for you. You don't need

these advanced prompt engineering

techniques. Every time I see someone on

Twitter say, "Oh, here's how to do

prompt engineering." I laugh in their

face because I know they're just trying

to get a little bit of engagement. There

is no need anymore for prompt

engineering. Prompt engineering is

extinct. These models are good enough.

Just tell it like it is. It will build

it for you. Keep it simple, stupid. The

next tip I have for you is use

screenshots as much as possible,

especially for UI. My biggest issue with

claude code and really every AI out

there is the UI is almost always the

same. It's always bad. It's a miracle

you don't see any blue and purple

gradients in this app that it built out.

The reason why is this. I try to include

screenshots with any UI change I make,

right? I use screenshots of inspiration

for the UI. How do I do that? One of my

favorite ways to do that is through

V0ero. So Vzero is another AI coding

tool. They have a design system section

here. If you click on design system,

they have a whole bunch of designs in

here you can click on and customize. If

you just choose any of these and then

you bring it over and you screenshot it,

you can just screenshot it. You use

command control shift4 on Mac that takes

a screenshot and copies it to your

clipboard so that you can easily just go

in a claw code and paste it in here. And

so if you're building out a UI, you're

building out a V1 of your app, you

always want inspiration. This V0ero

feature makes it really easy to get

inspiration. Include the screenshots.

Other things I like to do is I found

some inspiration on Pinterest before. So

Pinterest, which I thought only chicks

use, apparently not. I go on there now

and I search for like app designs and I

find really good inspiration for app

designs. So always make sure you have

some sort of inspiration or screenshot

of UI whenever you're building out UI

inside of Claw Code because you get way

better UI instead of that annoying gross

blue and purple gradient you always get.

And the last tip I learned about Claude

Code, using it almost 12 hours a day,

every day for the last 9 or 10 months,

is treat Claude like a creative partner.

Not many people I talk to ask a lot of

questions to Claude. I am constantly

asking questions of Claude. These AIs

are much at least much smarter than me.

They may not be smarter than you. You're

pretty smart, but for me, they're a lot

smarter than me. And so I am constantly

asking questions and treating it as an

equal, treating it as a creative

partner. So I'll do a lot of things like

this. I'm not even in plan mode yet. I'm

in regular edit mode. I'm saying I want

a folder system in the app so I can put

entries into folders. And I'll ask

things like what are different options

for designing this? What are different

cool features we could add? And I'll hit

enter on that and I'll send it. And now

I'm just bouncing ideas off of Claude,

right? Before I do any coding, before I

do any sort of planning, I'm just

saying, "Hey Claude, what are you what's

your opinion on this? What would you

add? What would you change?" And I do

this, this is like almost a pre-plan

mode. This is like a brainstorm mode. I

wish they would put in this a

slashbrainstorm mode where we can just

bounce ideas off each other. I mean, I'm

just doing it now, but I bounce ideas. I

kind of figure out what I want this to

be, and then I go into plan mode after.

I say, "Perfect. make a plan for

building that out. I love that idea. So,

as you can see here, it came up with a

whole bunch of ideas. There's kind of

the flat categories folder system, which

is what I was thinking about, but then

there's also a tag based. I didn't think

of that. Using hashtags to tag the

journal entries. I think that's

brilliant. And then you can search for

the hashtags in there. I didn't think of

that. That's great. Now, we just came up

with an even better way to implement

that feature. Uh, and then there's a

hybrid approach. Best of both. I like

that you have both folders and hashtags.

Now I can switch to plan mode with shift

tab and now I can say perfect implement

number four please. Right? It gave me a

menu item of ways to implement it. I

choose the item I want to take. Perfect.

Now we're in plan mode. Let's plan that

out. You should be treating Claude as

your creative partner. It's not just

some junior dev going out writing code

for you. It's your partner. Every app

I've built, including Creator Buddy,

which is now making over 300K a year, I

built completely off just bouncing ideas

back and forth with Claude. and it gave

me such brilliant, brilliant ideas. So,

to recap everything we went over, it

basically comes down to this. It

basically comes down to a keeping it as

simple as humanly possible. You don't

need to use every frigin feature on

planet Earth with claw code. Keep it so

simple. Number two, don't waste your

time. 80% of time using claw code is

downtime. Don't waste that downtime.

Talk to the AI. Get the most out of it.

And three, the AI is smarter than you

think. Bounce ideas off of it. Trust it.

Use it as your partner and you'll get

the most out of Claude Code. If you do

the eight things I talked about in this

video, you will get so much more out of

it. Feel free to go back now, write down

notes, whatever you want to do. You'll

get so much out of this. Claude Code is

brilliant. It's amazing. Is my favorite

tool to use on a daily basis. Make sure

to leave a like if you learned anything

at all. Subscribe if you haven't yet.

Turn on notifications. I live stream

like three times a week so you get

alerted on that. And sign up for the

number one AI newsletter on planet

Earth. It's completely free. Link down

below. Alexfinn.a. AI/Subscribe will get

you on it. Hope you learned a ton in

this video.