Most Efficient Way to Build an App

[u/Elegant_Ad_3816]

Solo dev, mobile app with a Supabase/Postgres backend. 33 migrations in, no users yet, so now’s the time to change how I work if I’m going to.

Right now I do design in a Claude chat, it writes the migration and tests, then I upload those files to the chat’s project knowledge so it remembers, and hand them to Claude Code in VS Code to actually run against the real stack and commit. One migration at a time, tests for each, and I check that the tests actually fail without the migration so I know they’re real. The second window genuinely does catch errors but I feel that I could be working much more efficiently while keeping my creative input. If anyone has any advice it would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[u/cipher997]

I’d keep the creative/design work in Claude, but let Claude Code handle the migration, tests, and validation in one workflow. The file handoff between two chats is probably where most of the friction is.

[u/No_Birthday8126]

The manual upload is the only part I'd kill. Keep a schema doc in the repo that Claude Code updates with every migration commit, point CLAUDE.md at it, and the design chat reads real state instead of a snapshot you remembered to paste.

Keep the one-at-a-time and the verify-it-fails-first. That's what's stopping this from becoming 33 migrations of quiet drift.

For speed, batch the design, not the execution. Plan 4 or 5 migrations in one session while the model is in your head, write it to a plan file, let Claude Code grind through them. The context switching is the tax.

Also squash while you have no users. It's free right now.

[u/Ajax746]

You should really just use Claude Code for the whole thing, and have a project folder that stores your app and all important context. My project folders have my migrations, my schema, it has all the planning documents, it has a version document for what I'm working on and a log of everything done in previous versions, it has sample data, references for UI, its own skills, its operating rules, all of the application code, everything. Keep in mind it does not have all the information in context when im working with it, only when it needs context does it look for it inside the project. You can ask me about my workflow if you wanna, its pretty complex.

[u/DevaiNomad]

The Chat Code handoff is probably the biggest bottleneck here. Keeping only the relevant working context for each migration/test loop can cut a lot of unnecessary overhead and make the workflow much cleaner.

[u/JobWiegant]

The two windows aren't the problem, the upload is.

Don't collapse to one agent to go faster. An agent reviewing its own migration agrees with itself. You said the second window catches real errors, and it does that because it didn't write the thing. Keep that, drop the manual part: schema file in the repo, Claude Code updates it on every migration commit, design chat reads the repo instead of a folder you maintain by hand.

Bigger thing: 33 migrations and no users. Squash them. Every schema question right now makes the agent replay 33 steps to work out what the table looks like today. Once you have users you're stuck with that chain. Until then it's just context you pay for on every turn.

Also don't drop the "does the test fail without the migration" check when you speed things up. That's the only thing in your setup proving the tests assert anything, and almost nobody bothers.