21-minute video, 2 problems solved, 1 new framework

I Found My New Favorite Vibe Coding Framework

Howdy, ya'll

I've found my new favorite vibe coding framework - you should check it out if you haven't.

It's called OpenSpec - think of it like Github SpecKit, but lighter and more flexible.

I've been pleasantly surprised at how well it follows your specs and doesn't drop details in the build.

I recorded a short video (21 minutes) on how to use it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFq4POtqom4

One of the bigger pains I hear from a lot of you is that practically none of these tools help in a meaningful way with real UX work.

So you take to tools like Pencil, Claude Design, Google Stitch, etc to get the job done.

But then have no reliable way to merge those UX designs together with what you've already built or planned.

I cover my workflow for that in the video above, so it's a nice 2-for-1 showing the features of OpenSpec + solving a real hair-on-fire problem.

News Worthy

Claude Actually DID Get Worse, Apparently

For the last few months, people have been complaining very loudly about how much Claude Code sucks now.

You know, that amazing, intelligent machine that gives every day people incredible capabilities they never had before - well, it SUCKS NOW (apparently).

And apparently everyone was kinda right. Anthropic has admitted there were some problems, and they have plans to fix it: https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/april-23-postmortem

So if you abandoned Claude Code, it may be time to give it another shot!

People Are Leaving GitHub

I'll be honest - I'm not gonna up-and-leave Github, but a lot of people are now. Fireship did a great (and funny) video on the controversy here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d53Zk28esmU

Long story short, they've been deleting PRs & having unprecedented downtime.

So people that maintain "critical" open source projects are rightfully upset and have decided to leave.

If you're an average-joe-ai-coder like me, it's likely not worth it - but good to be aware of!

Things Worth Checking Out

Create Agent TUI: have you ever seen one of those really cool terminal interfaces (like Claude Code) that people spin up and have these sweet command-line agent apps? Well, this tool helps you easily build them.

DESIGN.md is the new Standard: One of the things that was always kinda annoying with LLMs was that despite having a well-defined style, it would still just do whatever the hell it wanted sometimes. Well, Google Stitch is trying to make "DESIGN.md" the new standard. You can read their article about it here

Build Agents with the new Cursor SDK: It's pretty obvious that the future of all this stuff is moving toward agents (in one form or another). The thing is, it can be hard to build one that is powerful yet simple, and doesn't lock you in to a specific model provider. Cursor is trying to stay relevant by offering their agent harness as an SDK.

Claude Code Tips: Every so often, I'm humbled by my own lack of awareness of amazing features I didn't know existed in Claude Code. I cover 15 power tips in this video, which all pull from Boris Cherny (guy who made Claude Code). Check out that video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGAuqbbj1Ls

3 Constraints Before You Build: Constraints enable creativity. Just imagine how creative you'd need to be to build a time machine out of nothing but sticks? LOL… but really, a lot of products fail because they're too complicated or lack real direction. Read this article to see why.

PS - if you watch my videos on YouTube and don't actually subscribe, I could use an algorithm bump right about now. This link will make it a one-clicker for ya, and I will consider naming my first born after you:

https://www.youtube.com/@iamseankochel?sub_confirmation=1

That's it for today, see you guys next week!

-Sean