Build a family chore app through reviewed Rails tasks
At a glance
A developer replaced a fragile AI-generated chore tracker with a Rails application built through small reviewed changes. This workflow is listed under Personal Software, Parenting, Code Review.
- Agents / tools
- Claude Code, Claude, Ruby on Rails, GitHub
SourceBuilding a tool for these workflows? See weekly rates.
What they did
1) Start with the family's chore spreadsheet and a Rails development environment. Brainstorm requirements with Claude, then turn the notes into a product requirements document. 2) Ask for three database designs with tradeoffs and Mermaid diagrams. Choose one you understand and scaffold the application with rails new. Establish the deployment before adding features. 3) Give Claude Code the requirements and request an engineering plan; review it and remove unrelated work. Convert the plan to tasks and have the agent implement them individually, creating a GitHub pull request after each. 4) Review each change, leave concrete comments, and ask Claude to fetch and address them. Update CLAUDE.md with lessons that would prevent repeated corrections, and finish with the personalized child interfaces.
How it went
The third attempt met the author's quality bar after earlier single-file implementations became difficult to repair.
Worth knowing
The failed attempts lacked version control and forced too much functionality into one HTML file.
