I’m Not a Developer, But I Ship Code with AI: My Claude Code Workflow

I'm not a software developer, yet I ship real code with an AI assistant, and this is the exact workflow that keeps it safe. Follow one change from a plain request in Claude Code all the way to production, through pull requests, tests, AI reviewers, Aikido, Strix, Fly.io previews, branch protection and a Mergify merge queue.

Chapters

• 0:00 I understood none of it
• 1:07 A whole new language
• 1:34 My only real coding background
• 2:27 Why 2026 is different
• 3:00 The journey of one change
• 3:31 Part 1: The Restaurant Kitchen
• 4:03 Step 1: Ask the AI
• 4:38 Plan first, then code
• 5:09 Repository and clone
• 5:36 Branch: your side kitchen
• 6:01 Branch or main?
• 6:21 Commit and push
• 6:54 Watch the change move
• 7:20 Part 2: Reviews and Checks
• 7:50 Peer review and code owners
• 8:17 The CI and CD pipeline
• 8:50 Automated tests
• 9:21 Which test is it?
• 9:38 AI code reviewers
• 10:10 Trap 1: AI wrote it, so it's fine
• 10:39 Security scanning with Aikido
• 11:13 AI penetration testing with Strix
• 11:59 One PR through the checks
• 12:29 Part 3: Guarding Main
• 13:03 Branch protection rules
• 13:35 The merge queue with Mergify
• 14:15 Approved means ready?
• 14:34 Self merge, with guardrails
• 15:28 From the queue to real users
• 15:49 Staging, then production
• 16:19 And many more helpers
• 16:46 Trap 2: one scan at the end
• 17:23 Part 4: Loops and Lessons
• 18:21 How to ask a human
• 19:10 Goals and loops
• 19:48 The loop in action
• 20:13 The human still approves
• 20:43 What I'd tell my past self
• 21:14 My checklist for every change
• 21:41 Recap: the AI writes, you decide

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