8// AI Advantage
Build an AI App Around the Way You Work
How I turned my email habits into Chatterbuilt Mail—and a prompt for your own bespoke app.
I wanted to talk about Claude Duet today, but it's still rolling out. Anthropic's research preview prepares morning briefs, drafts replies for review and keeps working while you're away. As of November 4, access is by invitation for U.S. Pro, Max and Ultra subscribers, with shared plan usage limits. Team and Enterprise aren't included yet. I'll cover Duet in more depth as access expands.
So today I'm focusing on something I've been building: an app around the way I work. I built Chatterbuilt Mail because the detail I need to answer an email often lives somewhere else—a meeting note, my calendar or a CRM record.
That's the opportunity in bespoke apps: software shaped around your own job. Claude artifacts can be documents, dashboards or interactive tools. You describe what you want, inspect what Claude builds, and ask for changes. The result is something you can reopen and improve, with inputs, checks and actions together in one interface.
Chatterbuilt Mail is my example: a private Claude artifact for working through Gmail, with context from the other apps I choose to connect.
Both screenshots use fictional demo data.
A sponsor email beside a promised deck, deal stage and missing calendar booking. Demo data.
I wanted three things from it:
Context before composition. Show me what I promised before helping me reply. Mail's context panel labels the sources behind its brief and distinguishes an empty search from a failed lookup. That matters when “nothing found” could otherwise look like “nothing to do.”
A second read I can inspect. I wanted a check-my-mail button. “Check it for me” compares a draft with the message, available context and my writing rules. It checks unanswered questions, names, dates, commitments, recipients and tone. It shows ticks and notes without rewriting or sending. I still make the call; an AI check can miss things.
“Check it for me” flags that an invitation leaves out the event date. Demo data.
Separate suggestions from actions. The Send confirmation shows how many checklist items remain unchecked. I can still choose to send. I wanted the app to make the useful context easy to see and the consequential action a conscious choice. My writing preferences can guide its suggestions; I decide what goes out.
You can apply the same thinking to your own app. Pick one recurring task and one result you can check. Start with sample data, then use this prompt:
Build a small interactive app as a Claude artifact for [RECURRING TASK].
Include an input form, a result panel and a visible checklist.
It takes [INPUT] and produces [USEFUL RESULT].
Show sources and flag missing information.
Distinguish “nothing found” from “could not search.”
Include a “Check it for me” step using [MY CHECKLIST].
Keep suggestions separate from actions. Ask before changing records
or sending anything. Start with sample data and explain how I can test it.
Example fill-ins for renewal prep:
RECURRING TASK: Prepare a renewal decision.
INPUT: Renewal proposal and current support ticket.
USEFUL RESULT: Ready/needs review, with evidence and next step.
MY CHECKLIST: Is support resolved? Do names and dates agree?
What required information is missing?
Illustrative output with fictional data:
Renewal: Pine Desk
Proposal assumes support issue resolved.
Ticket still open. Confirm resolution date before approval.
Sources: sample proposal; sample support ticket.
What changes: Your app brings together rules you usually hold in your head: what to show, what to check, and when to ask you.
Where else this works: A meeting-prep tool, a proposal checker or a customer-handoff checklist. Test one correct case, one conflicting date and one missing required fact. It should flag the problems without inventing answers. Count correction time before deciding whether it saves work.
Mail's setup recipe gives you a prompt to paste into Claude. You'll need a paid plan with app connections and code execution/file creation enabled, plus Gmail connected. Ask Claude to start Mail in read-only mode.
Download and try Chatterbuilt Mail, then hit reply: what worked, what didn't, and what should I improve? If you like it, feel free to give it a star on GitHub.
