Building a macOS clipboard manager with Claude: A practical workflow case study
A developer recently shared their experience building Buffer, an open-source macOS clipboard manager, using Claude as a development partner. Instead of treating Claude as just a code generator, they used it as a planner and pair programmer.
Workflow details
The developer followed this specific workflow:
- Started by importing a basic macOS SwiftUI starter repository
- Used Claude to understand the existing structure
- Asked Claude to generate implementation plans for features
- Built features using Claude Code extension
- Iterated through chat while improving features and fixing issues
What made this effective
According to the developer:
- Planning first reduced trial-and-error coding
- Fewer failed generations compared to direct feature prompting
- Less back-and-forth debugging
- Lower token usage because they weren't repeatedly regenerating features
The developer noted that "cost effective" mainly came from reducing wasted prompts rather than reducing usage.
Result: Buffer clipboard manager
The resulting application, Buffer, has these features:
- Lightweight clipboard manager
- Fully local (privacy focused)
- OCR support
- Keyboard-first workflow
- Open source
Current stats show 100+ GitHub stars and 400+ downloads.
The main takeaway was that Claude worked best when used for planning first and then executing step-by-step instead of directly prompting for full features.
📖 Read the full source: r/ClaudeAI
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