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AdvancedEngineeringClaude

Develop Features with AI Using Custom Visual Planning Tools

Build a custom visual dev tool to create interactive UI mockups and flowcharts. Use these visual artifacts to guide an AI model like Claude Code to build software features with greater accuracy and less ambiguity, bridging the gap between human intuition and AI understanding.

From How I AI

How I AI: CJ Hess on Building Custom Dev Tools and Model-vs-Model Code Reviews

with Claire Vo

Develop Features with AI Using Custom Visual Planning Tools

Tools Used

Claude

Anthropic AI assistant

Step-by-Step Guide

1

Define the Feature and Request Visuals

Start with a high-level prompt to your primary AI assistant. Describe the feature you want to build and explicitly ask it to use your custom visual tool's 'skill' to create planning diagrams like user flows or animation timing sequences.

Prompt:
I want to create a spinning wheel where a user presses a button, the wheel spins, and then that is one of the tips. After that, the tip should pop up in a card just below the spinner. Then use the flowy flowchart skill to create a animation timing sequence diagram, and a user flow diagram for the tips and tricks page.
Pro Tip: Create custom aliases in your terminal (e.g., 'kevin') to quickly call your AI models with specific configurations or permissions, as mentioned in the post.
2

Generate and Review Flowcharts

The AI will generate JSON files based on the schema defined in your custom 'skill' (a markdown file with definitions and examples). Open these JSON files in your custom visual tool (e.g., Flowy) to see them as clean, interactive diagrams.

Pro Tip: The 'skill' file is crucial; it acts as documentation that teaches the AI how to generate the correct JSON schema for your tool. Develop it iteratively with examples.
3

Iterate on Plans Visually

If you need to make changes, such as adjusting an animation timing, edit the diagram directly in your visual tool's UI. This updates the underlying JSON file, which you can then show back to the AI to acknowledge the change.

Pro Tip: This visual feedback loop is much faster and more intuitive than manually editing JSON or rewriting text-based plans.
4

Create UI Mockups from Diagrams

Once the flowcharts are finalized, ask the AI to generate low-fidelity UI mockups based on the diagrams, again using a specific skill you've created for your tool.

Prompt:
Great. Based on those diagrams, please create UI mockups using the flowy UI mockups skill reference, other UI mockup flowy JSON files in this repo.
5

Build the Feature from Visual Plans

With clear, visually-vetted plans and mockups complete, give the AI a simple, direct command to build the feature. The detailed artifacts provide all the context the AI needs for an accurate implementation, often allowing you to skip a detailed text plan.

Prompt:
Based on the flowcharts and the mockups, build this feature.

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