Dev Loop — Claude Harness Docs

This is the day-to-day workflow for building with Claude. The whole loop happens through Discord — no terminal, no IDE, no code editor needed.

Starting a session

When you open a Claude Code session from the dashboard, Claude starts up in your project container and sends you a Discord DM within a few seconds:

Claude: Hey! I'm online and the dev server is running. Preview is at https://your-vm.exe.dev/preview What would you like to work on?

That message is your signal that everything is ready. The dev server is serving your project at the preview URL, and Claude is waiting for your first request.

Describing what you want

Talk to Claude the same way you'd talk to a colleague. You don't need to know HTML, CSS, or JavaScript — describe what you want in plain language.

✓

Good prompts focus on outcomes: "Add a dark mode toggle in the top-right corner" works better than "Add a button that sets document.body.style.background to black." Let Claude figure out the implementation.

Examples that work well:

"Make the page header stick to the top when I scroll"
"Add a contact form that validates the email address before submitting"
"The footer looks too cramped on mobile, can you fix that?"
"I want a photo gallery with a lightbox when you click an image"

Previewing changes

After Claude makes a change, open the preview URL in your browser:

https://your-vm-hostname.exe.dev/preview

The preview proxies to the dev server running inside your container. Refresh the page to see the latest changes — there's no build step needed during development.

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Browser console errors and warnings are automatically captured to browser-console.log in your project. If something looks wrong, ask Claude to check the console log and it'll be able to see any errors.

Iterating

Development is a conversation. Don't try to describe everything upfront — work in small rounds:

Ask for one thing "Add a search bar to the top of the page"
Preview it Refresh the preview and look at what Claude built.
Give feedback "The search bar looks good but the placeholder text should say 'Search recipes…' instead"
Repeat Keep going until it's right.

Managing projects

The dashboard (your VM's HTTPS URL) shows all your projects. From there you can:

Switch projects — click a project to make it active. Claude Code will start in that project's container the next time you open a session.
Create a new project — click the + button. A fresh project container with the starter template is ready in seconds.
See project status — the dashboard shows whether Claude is active, when it last responded, and whether the project is rate-limited.

What Claude can do autonomously

Claude has full access to the project's file system and can run shell commands inside its container. You don't need to approve individual actions — Claude will:

Install npm packages when a feature needs them
Run the dev server and check it's working
Read the browser console log to debug errors
Commit changes to git
Switch between different approaches if something isn't working

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For third-party APIs that need a key (weather, maps, payments, etc.), share the key in the chat and Claude will add it to the project. Claude won't sign up for external services on your behalf — you create the account, then hand over the key.

Tips

Ask questions freely. "Why is the layout breaking on mobile?" or "What's the best way to add user authentication?" — Claude will explain options and recommend an approach.
Share screenshots. You can attach an image to your Discord message and Claude will look at it. Useful for describing visual bugs or sharing design inspiration.
Reference existing pages. "Make this page look more like the homepage" works because Claude can see all your project files.
Don't worry about breaking things. All changes are committed to git, so you can always say "undo the last change" and Claude will roll it back.

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