Supercharging My Development Environment with Claude

Co-authored with Claude

Over the past few months, I’ve been experimenting with using Claude to enhance my development environment, and the results have been remarkable. What started as simple configuration tweaks has evolved into a comprehensive customization journey across my core tools: Neovim, Hammerspoon, Kitty, and even HCalendar.

The Power of AI-Assisted Customization

Traditional tool customization often involves hours of documentation reading, trial and error, and piecing together solutions from Stack Overflow. With Claude, I found myself able to iterate quickly on ideas, explain complex requirements in natural language, and get working solutions that I could then refine.

Neovim: From Configuration to Custom Plugins

My Neovim setup has always been heavily customized, but Claude helped me take it to the next level. Instead of manually crafting complex Lua configurations, I could describe exactly what behavior I wanted:

• “I need a function that automatically formats and organizes my imports when I save a file”
• “Create a custom statusline that shows git branch, LSP status, and current function context”
• “Build a snippet system that adapts based on the current file type and project structure”

Claude not only provided the code but explained the underlying concepts, helping me understand why certain approaches were better than others. This educational aspect was invaluable for long-term maintenance.

Hammerspoon: Window Management and Automation

Hammerspoon is a powerful automation tool for macOS, but its Lua-based configuration can be intimidating. Claude helped me create sophisticated window management scripts and application launchers that respond to specific contexts:

• Dynamic window tiling that adapts based on the applications I’m running
• Smart application switching that considers my current workflow
• Automated project switching that opens the right combination of apps and files

The most impressive part was how Claude could take my high-level descriptions of desired behavior and translate them into efficient Lua code that leveraged Hammerspoon’s extensive API.

Kitty: Terminal Excellence

While Kitty is already an excellent terminal emulator, Claude helped me optimize my configuration for my specific workflow. We created custom key bindings, color schemes that adapt to the time of day, and layout configurations that automatically adjust based on the type of work I’m doing.

Claude also helped me write shell functions that integrate seamlessly with Kitty’s features, creating a more cohesive terminal experience.

HCalendar: Calendar Integration Magic

Perhaps the most surprising success was with HCalendar. I wanted to integrate my calendar more seamlessly into my development workflow - having context about upcoming meetings when planning work, automatically blocking focus time, and creating reminders based on project deadlines.

Claude helped me write custom scripts that:

• Parse my calendar and create contextual notifications in my development environment
• Automatically adjust my “do not disturb” settings based on calendar events
• Generate daily summaries that help me plan my development tasks around meetings

Key Lessons Learned

Iterative Refinement: Claude excels at taking initial solutions and refining them based on feedback. I found myself saying “that’s close, but can you adjust it to…” frequently, and each iteration got closer to exactly what I needed.

Documentation Understanding: Claude could read and understand the documentation for these tools better than I could manually parse it, often suggesting features I didn’t know existed.

Cross-Tool Integration: The most powerful customizations came from integrating multiple tools together. Claude helped me create workflows that spanned across my entire development environment.

Learning by Doing: Rather than just copying configurations, Claude explained the reasoning behind decisions, helping me become more proficient with these tools over time.

The Future of Development Environment Customization

This experience has convinced me that AI-assisted customization is the future of development environment optimization. The ability to describe desired behavior in natural language and get working, well-documented code in return dramatically lowers the barrier to creating truly personalized development environments.

The combination of rapid iteration, educational explanations, and cross-tool integration capabilities makes Claude an invaluable partner in crafting the perfect development setup. My environment now feels more like an extension of my thinking process rather than a collection of separate tools.

If you’re still manually wrestling with configuration files and documentation, I highly recommend trying an AI-assisted approach. The productivity gains and learning opportunities are substantial, and the results are far more sophisticated than what I could have achieved through traditional methods alone.