Orchestrated Builds
How I route coding work between three tiers of AI models: an expensive orchestrator, background managers, and a fast implementation model. Plus the review loops that make it safe.
James Chambers
James Chambers is a web developer who builds SaaS products
Latest posts
Coding with LLMs: 101
My current AI development workflow; from ChatGPT copy-paste to Claude Code and beyond.
Build Notes #14
On building work, choices, and Seinfeld.
Build Notes #13
On spreadsheet exports, the creative process, and walking.
Masterpiece Machine
On why an over-engineered task management setup can extinguish the spark required for great creative work.
Build Notes #12
On content marketing, stupid monkeys, and train schedules.
Content Marketing for Bootstrappers
How to use your strengths as a maker to grow long-term traffic for your SaaS.
Build Notes #11
On annual pricing, tour events, and perfectionism.
Annual Pricing as a Discount
In January of 2021, I redesigned the Boords pricing page to reframe annual plans as discounts. Here's what happened.
Build Notes #10
On bad banks, the war of art, and a heavy workbench.
Build Notes #9
On HTML email, a new ceiling, and Ice Bear saws.
Build Notes #8
On new icons, work cycles, and Vimwiki
Build Notes #7
On becoming a full-time independent product person.
Build Notes #6
Annual discounts, not Getting Things Done, and beginners After Effects.
Build Notes #5
On the M1 MacBook, Notion, and my resting heart rate.
How working remotely lowered my resting heart rate 22%
Despite everything last year had to offer, my heart rate dropped from 59 to 47BPM in 2020. What gives?
Hot reloading Next.js with Docker in development
Learn the tricks needed to get Next.js hot reloading working with Docker in a development environment.
Build Notes #4
Launching the billing & Rails upgrades, fixing my slow Typescript setup.
Build Notes #3
On a Life of Focus, Stripe Checkout, and a Rails upgrade.
How to fix slow Typescript syntax highlighting in Vim
How an old regex engine caused hours of misery, and the one-line fix which saved me.
Build Notes #2
On the Boring Bits™, SEO as a filter, and an office reshuffle
How to find Rails development performance bottlenecks
Resources to help you speed up a slow Rails development server.
Build Notes
Notes on the highs and lows of building indie software products.
How to test webhooks locally with Rails 6 & ngrok
Build test-driven webhook functionality on your local machine with Rails 6 and ngrok.
Build a Rails 6 JWT JSON:API with Devise
How to build a test-driven JSON:API authentication system with Rails 6, Rspec, and Devise.
How to build a pegged-mortise bar stool
Embellished build album of my first foray into furniture-making.
Habit building with coffee beans
An alternative approach to habit tracking.
Why we deleted 70% of our portfolio
Six years into running Animade, we permanently removed two-thirds of the projects from our website.
Growing a studio, the hard way
Difficulties of scaling a creative business beyond the first couple of employees.
Batch resizing images from the command line on a Mac
If you need to quickly resize a bunch of images on a Mac, you don't need to open Photoshop.
Using Git in a team: a cheatsheet
A simple workflow to make using Git with others a little bit simpler.
Why it's worth learning Vim
An ode to the bare-bones text editor.
6 lessons from launching FeedHop
What I've learned and things I'd do differently.
Mistakes we made starting a company
A list of blunders and subsequent lessons learned from the early days of Chambers Judd.
Artificial Defence Mechanisms
What if products could protect themselves from threats in their environment the way animals do in nature?