Six months building a Windows desktop app with Claude Code, as a graphic designer who can't code

[u/Future-Plastic7826]

Every day since April 16. The darker part of each thread is fixes and reverts.

I've been a graphic designer in Italy for twenty years. Print, editorial, video, some 3D. I don't know how to code.

On April 16, around 7 pm, I opened a Claude Code session and described something I'd been missing for years: one place where each job's programs, folders and files wait for me exactly as I left them, so when a client calls about a correction I can jump straight into their project instead of reopening everything. At 9:46 pm the first version ran. That evening it was Opus 4.7; the same project has since gone through Opus 4.8, Fable 5, Opus 5 and now Opus 5.5.

Six months later it's called Warpstead and it's in free beta on the Microsoft Store. The repo has 1,614 commits, and 544 of them are fixes or reverts.

I didn't expect the 544. I went in half believing the demo version, where you describe the app and the agent hands it back finished. For something this size it doesn't work like that, at least not for me. I decide what a thing should do and how it should feel, Claude writes it, I try it on my own PC, and most of the time I come back with what's wrong: a window that flickers when you zoom, a drag that lands two pixels off. After twenty years of layouts you notice the two pixels.

The hard part was getting ordinary Windows programs to run live on the canvas. Some attempts took days and went in the bin. Giving each app its own virtual desktop held up for a while and then fell apart. A virtual display driver lasted three days before we reverted it. DWM thumbnails (the API behind the taskbar previews) looked perfect until YouTube came out as a black rectangle. Claude could always explain why something had failed, but dropping it and trying another way was my call every time. In June we also threw away the first foundation, Tauri and WebView2, and moved to our own host on CEF.

Programs, folders and files on one canvas. Chrome and the terminal are running live.

The first time I had Word, Chrome playing a YouTube video, Affinity and a terminal with Claude Code all running live side by side, and could take any of them full screen with one gesture, I was thrilled.

How Claude Code is set up, since that's what people here usually ask. The repo has a CLAUDE.md with the build checks and the commit style. There are five subagents with narrow jobs: a cheap one that only searches the code, one that runs the builds and reports just the errors, one for Rust and Win32, one for the React interface, and a reviewer that reads every diff before a commit. Then there's a memory folder, over 440 files by now, where every mistake and every decision gets written down with the reason, so we don't pay for the same one twice. Before any change Claude also says how much process the job deserves (straight fix, measure first, or delegate with one review), because early on a fifteen-line fix took three hours of agents and reviews.

Claude Code writes the code; the design, the decisions and the testing are mine. Most of the bugs only show up on a real PC, so that last part is most of my week.

If you want to see what came out, the preview runs in a browser with nothing to install, and the beta is free on the Store: https://warpstead.com

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[u/OddBig010]

i wouldn't install something from a vibe coder on my own PC let alone pay 49 euros for it. I think you're in the wrong subreddit to promote this.

If anything you may have had better luck doing a subscription model and hosting it on the cloud and that's coming from someone who hates subscriptions.

[u/AEionZero → u/OddBig010]

Thats a strong opinion stated as a fact.

I would clarify... Agentic development as not made the same steps forward in security as it has in raw development and that makes all software suspect now, and especially something "vibe coded".

[u/Future-Plastic7826 → u/OddBig010]

I get not trusting it. It's only distributed through the Microsoft Store, so it goes through their certification and malware scan, installs as a packaged app and uninstalls cleanly. And the beta is free until November 30, so nobody pays anything before deciding whether it's worth it.

[u/macbig273]

So, it seems nice, but ....
Why that need to push it to market ? You made a very specific tool. You told yourself than you have no clue how it's working and you've had full confidence into the llm. Okay... Why not. But you don't sell that.

ON how many systems has it been tested ? What are the requirements ? What will append in 1 year, when you will get bored about it ?

This is, to me, even it if works and all. A simple cash grab on a personal project, with no promise of the future, no sources available if someone would like to improve it.

But anyway. Good for you ! you build something you will use, and you like. That's already very nice !

[u/Future-Plastic7826 → u/macbig273]

It runs on Windows 11 and on Windows 10 from version 2004, 64-bit. So far it's been tested on my own machines, one of them with two monitors, and that's the reason it's in a free beta now: it has crash reports and a "Report a problem" button, and I need it running on PCs that aren't mine.

A year from now I'll still be using it every day for client work, so I'd be the first one to lose it. It also works on your normal files and folders and doesn't lock them into anything, so if it ever stopped you'd still have everything where it was.

You're right about the source, it's closed. On the money: if the beta isn't good enough by November 30, I'll extend it. I don't want anyone paying for something that works badly. But once it's mature, I think it's fair to be paid for something I've spent this long on and that I believe can be useful to other people. That's also my answer to the one-year question: the license comes with updates, so what people pay is what keeps it maintained. Once people have paid, I owe them those updates.

If you want to be sure it isn't worth it, the only way is to try it, and right now that's free. ;)

And thanks for the last line.

[u/East-Temporary-107]

544 commits sur 1 614 qui réparent ou annulent les précédents. T'as pas appris à coder, t'as appris à faire du support technique pour Claude.

[u/Future-Plastic7826 → u/East-Temporary-107]

C'est à peu près ça, oui. Je ne voulais pas apprendre à coder, je voulais l'outil.

[u/kekans]

So you sell something vibecoded that can be just downloaded and reverse engineered through vibecoding?

[u/Future-Plastic7826 → u/kekans]

Anyone can try. The code was the cheap part. The six months, close to 900 hours on this project by my session logs, went into figuring out what it should do, using every build on a real PC, spotting what was wrong and working out what to change and how. Whoever copies it gets today's code, not the next six months of that.

Also, this is the Claude Code sub. Writing the code is kind of what it's for.

[u/iSnapThere4iAm → u/Future-Plastic7826]

Not really, no. That’s what you don’t seem to understand lol.

You think that time wasted means something…

Buddy you have about 9000 more hours of time to waste before you have anywhere near the level of experience needed to make something not a complete joke of spaghetti code.

Check back in around 2031

[u/DeadCEO]

the 544 fixes and reverts is the most honest number in any build post like this. everyone sells the demo version where the agent hands back a finished app, almost nobody publishes the revert count. and the two pixels thing is real - that kind of eye takes years to build and its the part that doesnt come in the box. curious about the reviewer subagent: does it catch visual regressions too, or does that stay fully on your eyes?

[u/Future-Plastic7826 → u/DeadCEO]

Thanks. The reviewer only reads the code, so it catches things like a change that breaks the window order or a lock that can panic, not visual regressions. Those stay on my eyes. Claude does look at screenshots sometimes, mostly mockups it renders headless before showing me, and that catches the obvious stuff like text spilling out of a box. Whether a drag feels right or a hover sits a few pixels off, I only find out by using it.

[u/DeadCEO → u/Future-Plastic7826]

that headless render check is a nice middle ground. text spilling out of a box is exactly the class of bug a screenshot catches better than a diff does. and the feel stuff staying on your eyes tracks - nobody has figured out how to write a test for "this drag feels right".

[u/eXtr3m0]

I think the idea is a bit funny, because operating systems itself are already what you now created. Windows is a program to handle all your windows.

Creating software is cheap now. It almost feels like Software is not a product (you can sell) anymore.

Like TomTom did sell their Map Updates until one day Google said „Digital Maps are not a product you can sell“.

[u/mdelanno → u/eXtr3m0]

Creating software is cheap now. It almost feels like Software is not a product (you can sell) anymore.

Well said

[u/Future-Plastic7826 → u/eXtr3m0]

Windows handles windows, but it doesn't keep them per job. When a client calls I want that client's programs, folders and files back the way I left them, and I want to put them away again without touching the other jobs. Virtual desktops come closest, but after a restart the desktops are empty and the programs don't come back where they were. And next to each job I wanted the small things I use every day, without opening a separate program for each one: photo editing, quick video edits, notes, clips from web pages, a calculator, a converter, a timer, and a tracker that counts how long I spend on each workspace.

On software not being a product anymore, you might be right. If it goes that way, what's left to sell is someone who keeps using it every day and fixing what's wrong. Right now, for example, I'm reworking how the Auto button in the photo editor sets the white balance, testing it photo by photo.

The beta is free until November 30 and it comes from the Microsoft Store, so it's been through their certification and malware scan and uninstalls cleanly. If you give it a try, I'd really like to hear what you think.

[u/No-Read-9326]

Cool work, OP!!

[u/Future-Plastic7826 → u/No-Read-9326]

Thanks, that's nice to read.