What Running Everything on Claude Code Actually Looks Like

So I run my entire operation through Claude Code. And I don't mean I use it as a fancy autocomplete or ask it questions occasionally. I mean it's the primary interface for building, deploying and managing basically everything I do. It handles my infrastructure, my communication, my research and most of my development.

I know that sounds like hype. So let me just walk through what my actual day looks like.

The setup

I've got three laptops and two servers, all running NixOS with a shared declarative config. That config manages everything. Packages, services, secrets, SSH keys, MCP servers, the lot. To set up a new machine is basically two commands and it's got the same environment as everything else. That's one of the things I really love about NixOS right, the reproducibility means I'm never worried about my agents messing up a system because I've always got a working config to fall back to.

Claude Code is my main terminal tool and it's connected to MCP servers for Protonmail (email through Proton Bridge), WhatsApp, Google Drive and a bunch of custom services I've built. Each project has its own CLAUDE.md file that documents the infrastructure, deployment commands, credentials references and project context. So any instance of Claude that opens a project knows exactly what it's working with straight away.

On any given day I'll have about five Claude Code instances running at the same time. I jump between them. Some are doing work stuff, others are handling business things like consultancy or my own projects. It's like having a team except it's just me and a bunch of agents.

What it actually does day to day

So for infrastructure, when I registered this website, rexford.dev, Claude Code hit the Cloudflare API directly with my token. It deleted all the default Namecheap DNS records, added the Protonmail MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records, created a Cloudflare Pages project, built a SvelteKit site, deployed it and wired up the custom domain. I didn't touch the Cloudflare dashboard once. The whole thing took maybe 30 minutes.

For development, I describe what I want and it writes it, builds it, deploys it. And I don't mean in a vague "AI writes code" way. I mean in a "here's the production URL, it's live" way. This site you're reading was built and deployed in a single session. The design system, the blog engine, the contact form, the SEO. All of it.

Communication is a big one. Through the MCP servers Claude Code can read and send emails via Protonmail using any of my custom domain addresses, handle WhatsApp messages with the right tone for each context and manage files in Google Drive. Each channel has specific rules so the tone always matches what's expected. WhatsApp is professional and neutral. Emails match the brand they're sent from.

I've even got it connected to my Starling Bank account. It can look at my spending patterns, flag stuff I might not have noticed and help me improve my financial habits. So it's not just handling work and business, it's genuinely helping me manage my life better. Having that kind of visibility across everything in one place is something I don't think enough people are doing with AI yet.

And research. When I was looking into the Anthropic Fellows Programme, Claude Code searched the web, fetched the actual job listings from Greenhouse, pulled out every requirement and gave me an honest assessment of my chances based on my actual profile. Not flattery. It told me straight that my chances were low and explained exactly why. That kind of honesty is genuinely useful.

Why NixOS makes this work so well

So the reason all of this comes together is because of how NixOS and Claude Code interact. And not many people are talking about this right. Because everything in NixOS is declarative, when Claude opens a project on any of my machines it can immediately look at the config and understand what system it's on, what tools are installed, what services are running and how everything fits together. It's like giving the agent a complete map of the environment before it even starts.

And that means I can let agents make real changes to my infrastructure without being scared they'll break something. Because worst case I've always got a working config to rebuild from. I can literally go for a walk, spend some time with family, come back and the agents have set up a new service. My infrastructure doesn't become a chore, it becomes an asset.

I've also got what I call agent-ops which is basically a playbook that documents every setup pattern I've used. So when I spin up a new project it follows the exact same structure. New domain, DNS, email, website, deployment. It's all repeatable. Each project gets its own CLAUDE.md and each CLAUDE.md builds on what I've learned from the last one. So over time the whole system gets smarter.

Being honest about the limits

I want to be real about this because there's so much hype around AI online and most of it is rubbish. You still need to know what you want to build. Claude executes really well but it doesn't come up with the ideas. That's still on me. What to build, who it's for, why it matters. That's human work and it always will be.

And when something completely new comes up that it hasn't seen patterns for before it can go in circles a bit. That's when I step in and use my own judgement. I also still check what it does right. I give it access to API tokens and deployment commands but I'm not just handing everything over and walking away. I review the changes. I make sure nothing's been done that shouldn't have been.

What I actually think about all this

Look this isn't about AI replacing developers. I'm a developer who happens to use AI as my primary interface. The code still needs to be correct. The architecture still needs to make sense. The decisions are still mine.

But all the mechanical stuff, the boilerplate, the API calls, the config files, the deployment pipelines. That's handled. And that frees up my head for the parts I actually care about. The designing, the innovating, building things that haven't been built before.

And honestly I've never been more productive and more relaxed at the same time. That sounds like a contradiction but it's not. When the procedural stuff is taken care of you stop stressing about it. You stop context switching between the creative work you want to do and the maintenance work you have to do. It just gets done in the background while you focus on what matters.

That's what I care about. AI is a multiplier and if we don't constantly work on our base then we'll be static and people are going to overtake us. So I use AI to handle the procedural stuff and I focus on pushing the creative and strategic side. The ideas have to come from somewhere and right now that somewhere is still us.