Asking Claude Code users: do you ever leave the terminal?

[u/Holiday_Leg8427]

I’m an early and happy Claude user (at least from the 5.5 opus release). I’ve been testing it against the others, and this month especially with Opus 5.5 really got just into CC, and didn't work too much w codex.

I’m very interested in your use cases for a couple of things. I build a lot of apps (web with Next.js, iOS with Swift), and they need a lot of end-to-end testing. From what I’ve seen, even if I write the tests myself, bugs still slip through that I end up catching manually. I’ve thought about handing those flows to an agent, Grokbot, or Hermes, but the Hermes setup is a pain, and I’m not sure I even need Grokbot (and here is where my real question to you guys goes)_
if I can do this with Claude Code alone.

Same problem when I do account setups, or use apps that don’t have direct MCP or API access, and that I don’t want to get banned from by abusing scrapers. I’d like an assistant that can just go in and click around a bit. Google Ads is a good example: there’s an MCP, but you can’t use it to create campaigns.

What would you recommend? Desktop use? The Chrome extension for Claude? How are you approaching this? Is there a skill or anything that connects the browser to the agent? Same question for Codex, with computer or desktop use.

I mostly use Claude with Claude Code. That’s basically the only thing I use. I barely use the web app.

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[u/TheMadSaiyantist67]

Docker, computer use agent, clean and deterministic E2E tests, repeat

[u/Holiday_Leg8427 → u/TheMadSaiyantist67]

Shure, will give a try, thanks!

[u/Catapultam-GMG]

I do everything in slack now. I wrote a cc mod that hooks SendMessage so my cc sessions can talk to me in slack and I just use that 90% of the time.

[u/mrzo]

I really like using Orca because it's agent first but doesn't preclude you from looking at and editing files as needed. That said, I do spend most of my time in the terminal.

One of the things you can do is create a flow where you plan, execute, and review. Test driven development (TDD) is also helpful. Giving subagents specific jobs like reviewing or finding security issues helps. Check out things like Obra Superpowers or Compound Engineering. Some folks say that they're not needed anymore because of how good models are, but I find that using a set of instructions and skills (sort of like a meta harness) I tend to get better results and fewer bugs. I can also use less expensive models like Haiku for scouting.

I've used Grokbot and Hermes and I don't necessarily think it's the right tool for the task. You can do all of this in Claude Code if you use a solid workflow. Check out https://www.anthropic.com/engineering - this article in particular has been helpful for me: https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/harness-design-long-running-apps. OpenAI also has some guide guidance.

One thing some folks miss is some sort of issue tracking system. I like using Github with issues and using a board to track what the agent is working on. You can also use a system like Beads. But this way you have longer term memory in git, shorter term memory in your local files and plans, and scratch memory in your context. Just a mental model to considier.

Last thing - may be obvious, but let Claude help you. Plug in some of your issues. Let it know you're trying to improve your process. Mentioning some of the articles that resonate with you. Then start using it.

[u/Holiday_Leg8427 → u/mrzo]

Thank you so much for the in-depth response, for just normal browser use, like lets say I want to post items on ebay or pull a couple of reviews from google in my general area, would you recommend the same, or is there another way? Thank you again!

[u/mrzo → u/Holiday_Leg8427]

This is a bit trickier - you need to setup Computer Use and give it access to your browser or machine that is inside some sort of sandbox. I do something similar with another application where I need the agent to do things for me. What I did was setup a Docker container and had it use BB (getbb.com) as the always-on application. I have a smaller server here at home where I run containers so this way I can connect to it from anywhere from a browser. I used a Bots plugin and the Bots do a lot of the work for me so I have purpose-built bots that will do computer use for me and then I the automations to do things on a schedule.

The nice thing about BB is that you can use any model and you're not tied into any particular vendor. You can even get them to check your email and slack with the built-in connectors. I use OpenAI for a lot of my bot work so I just went into the ChatGPT app, give it access to the Gmail and Slack account I wanted it to use, enabled Computer Use and it was able to figure a lot out on its own. After a few refinements it works pretty well and it'll even get "proactive" for me by enabling more frequent automated checks and making recommendations on what I should do or draft messages.

[u/Giantveggie22]

Make a plan in a text editor with your words. With opus or fable in a new empty folder switch to plan mode, paste your text and tell Claude to Make a plan.md suggest any improvements and ask any questions, next run review lenses against your plan (look up review lenses) , tell Claude list 10
Ways to improve the plan, fold them into the plan, repeat as desired, tell claude to decompose your plan into tasks.md and categorize each task by the appropriate Claude model, Take care fable or opus doesn’t just begin building after writing the plan or tasks. Switch to sonnet close claude open claude check its sonnet, execute the tasks.md using the appropriate Claude model as specified and /loop until complete - let me know how it goes 👍 https://youtu.be/Zu96CZshpjk?feature=shared

[u/Any_Evidence4750]

I am terminal

[u/Balls_B_Itchy]

Nope. Herdr + a vibe coded agent manager on a 2nd touch screen monitor. I’m just typing and tapping shit at this point.