How to build your own AI developer tools with Claude Code | CJ Hess (Tenex)

**CJ Hess** (0:00)
Working with Claude is just such a delight. It just feels so steerable. And I think the one thing it really has is intent understanding. When I want it to dig deep, it just does it. And it's really enabled me to build a little ecosystem of my own tools around it.

**Claire Vo** (0:14)
I think environment setup and developer setup is such an underappreciated use case. One of the things that I know you really care about is effective planning. And you've come up with a way that you do your planning that I think is pretty unique.

**CJ Hess** (0:26)
So I've played around with this tool to basically give Claude these JSON files. And there's a whole set of skills I've built around this that Claude Code can use to write these out. And then these actually end up generating nice looking UI mockups. I will say this is the dev tool that was almost 100% prompted.

**Claire Vo** (0:50)
Welcome back to How I AI. I'm Claire Vo, product leader and AI obsessive here on a mission to help you build better with these new tools. Today, I have CJ Hess at Tenex. And if you've seen him on X, he is building some of the most useful tools and flows for being a quote unquote real AI engineer. We're going to get a sneak peek in his tool, Flowy, that he vibe coded for himself. And he's going to show us how he uses model to model comparison to make sure his code is great. Let's get to it. This episode is brought to you by Orkes, the company behind open source conductor, the platform powering complex workflows and process orchestration for modern enterprise apps and agentic workflows. Legacy business process automation tools are breaking down. Siloed low code platforms, outdated process management systems and disconnected API management tools weren't built for today's event driven, AI powered cloud native world. Orkes changes that. With Orkes conductor, you get a modern orchestration layer that scales with high reliability, supports both visual and code-first development, and brings human, AI and systems together in real time. It's not just about tasks. It's about orchestrating everything. APIs, microservices, data pipelines, human in the loop actions and even autonomous agents. So build, test and debug complex workflows with ease. Add human approvals, automate backend processes and orchestrate agentic workflows at enterprise scale, all while maintaining enterprise-grade security, compliance and observability. Whether you're modernizing legacy systems or scaling next-gen AI-driven apps, Orkes helps you go from idea to production fast. Orkes. Orkestrate the future of work. Learn more and start building at orkes.io. That's O-R-K-E-S dot I-O. CJ, welcome to How I AI.

**CJ Hess** (2:51)
Thanks, Claire. It's good to be here.

**Claire Vo** (2:53)
So I've seen a lot of Claude and AI engineering power users. And I still think you're like a super power user of some of these tools. And it's not just because you're creating real production code with what you're building, which is really nice to see. And I think a subset of what we're seeing out of folks using these tools, you also build tools for yourself to make the process of AI engineering better. And you share those tools with other people who then validate that they're actually helpful. So, why are you so excited about, in particular, Claude Code? And what has it changed for you as, as we were talking before the show, a quote unquote real software engineer?

**CJ Hess** (3:32)
Like a lot of people, the Opus 4.5 moment was a big one. But I've been on Claude Code, I don't know, maybe last May. But for me, it was really about the harness they have. And like, I see a lot of arguments about Codex and Claude Code. And I honestly argue GPT 5.2 is a smarter model. But like working with Claude is just such a delight, like in Claude Code, it just feels so like steerable. And I think the one thing it really has is like intent understanding. Maybe I'm not giving, you know, Opus and Cursor like the shot it deserves here, but there's something about in Claude Code, like when I want it to dig deep, it just does it. It feels to like pick up on my intuition just in the prompts. And it's really enabled me to almost like build a little ecosystem of my own tools around Claude Code, kind of particularly with skills now, that just like keep making it better and better for me because it's Claude Code plus like this system of skills and tools that I've built around it. So it's like really hard for me to get out of it.

**Claire Vo** (4:47)