Because it’s almost Christmas, my daughter and I chatted about how we wanted to do Secret Santa this year. Already in my mind, I obviously wanted to build an app for it.
We were sitting in a cafe while waiting for the older daughter, who was at archery practice, and I wanted to try recording our conversation to test out the new addition to my build workflow.
She went on to describe how she wanted things to work, and what other features we could add to make the experience interesting. I had brought my triple-A-powered voice recorder, which I had recently set up to fire off a local automation when plugged in to the itsybit studio (my Linux laptop).
When the device is plugged in, it first triggers an automated import of all the voice notes into their respective folders for backing up. When that’s complete, it triggers a transcription job that’s done by a local model hosted on Ollama.
When we got home, I plugged it in, fired up Claude Code in a new project folder, and pointed it at the transcript.
Before any planning, I asked for a few design drafts. My daughter picked her favourite, “Kraft & Ribbon”, and asked for it to be more Christmassy. So it got fairy lights, a tartan ribbon, a gift tag and a pine bow with snow.
Then I triggered my /lets-plan-it skill, which split the app into nine slices. While it planned, I set up the subdomain with my hosting provider. I added two decisions of my own: the organiser drops their name in too, and the organiser is the one who says “everyone’s in” and closes the box. Then I triggered /lets-build-it, and off it went.
We went on with our day. We had planned to go indoor climbing after lunch, a new family activity that we’ve recently picked up. With remote control enabled on the Claude app, I could regularly check in to see how it was doing, since I wasn’t at my computer to see the usual dashboard.
By the time we finished climbing, I checked my phone and https://secretsanta.itsybit.se was live. From plan to live took about half an hour.
As with all the other apps, it has grown a lot of features since. The best ones come from the kids, who keep handing me ideas for what to do while waiting for everyone to join, and while waiting for Christmas. Obviously, we’re decorating Christmas trees and baking gingerbread cookies in the app. Just not in real life yet!
