This isn’t hype. Something shifted this week, and I think it marks a turning point in AI development.
I ran a single prompt in Claude Code—just one request, plain English—and then I hit enter.
What happened next felt like magic.
Claude Code kept going. And going. And going.
It ran for 15 minutes straight (941 seconds), processed 37,400 tokens in one shot, and delivered something I never thought I’d see:
A full website plan
Detailed page-by-page breakdowns in Markdown
Rich, usable documentation
To put that into perspective: that single response was about the length of a full O’Reilly programming book.
And it wasn’t fluff. It was better than anything I could have written myself.
Why This Matters
For years, I’ve followed AI forecasts—like AI27, which predicted we’d see autonomous task execution around now. Back then, it felt absurd.
But here we are.
I asked Claude Code to plan my site. It didn’t just give me a generic outline. It gave me structured deliverables: Markdown files for every page, each one deep, thorough, and immediately usable.
Then I asked it to build the thing.
Two prompts. Thirty minutes. Entire project done.
That’s not just speed. That’s quality + autonomy.
What Changed
I’ve tried planning prompts before. Usually, the results are compressed, shallow, and full of random stack recommendations I didn’t ask for.
This time, I changed my approach:
Structured outputs — I told it to create Markdown files.
Break it down — Instead of one build the app prompt, I asked for page-by-page plans.
Chain prompts — I took those files, fed them back, and said: Cool, now build it.
Walk away — I literally went for a run. When I came back, it was finished.
The output? Not just usable, but surprisingly better than my own planning would have been.
The Caveats
The app I built was backend-light (just CRUD + strategy screens).
Open-ended tasks like this work better than rigid, production-scale systems.
I still wouldn’t hand it a fintech app and expect compliance-ready code.
But here’s the real milestone: I now trust AI to execute end-to-end workflows while I’m not even at my desk.
We’ve crossed into a new phase.
How You Can Recreate This
If you want to try this yourself, here’s the playbook:
Break down big tasks → don’t ask for a whole app at once.
Use structured formats → Markdown, JSON, tables.
Chain your prompts → plan first, then execute.
Go deep, not broad → expand one workflow at a time.
Batch your context → feed in notes or files upfront.
Let it cook → walk away, give it 15 minutes, come back.
Final Thought
I started this as an experiment. But after seeing Claude Code plan and build a project in 2 prompts, I’m convinced:
This is a genuine milestone in AI-assisted development.
The way we build software is about to feel very different.
Have you tried something similar? I’d love to hear your experiments in the comments.