From ChatGPT to Claude Code — How My AI Workflow Evolved Over 2 Years of FiveM Dev

It started with a frustration Two years ago, I wanted to build custom scripts for my FiveM roleplay server. I knew exactly what I wanted — a custom billing system with quantity-based invoicing, a police reward distribution tool, an in-game arcade with real playable games, vending machines that could track stock and revenue by job. The vision was clear. The problem was execution. I don't write Lua. I don't write JavaScript. I'm a systems designer — I think in data flows, user interactions, and edge cases. The "how it should work" part comes naturally. The "typing the actual code" part does not. So I turned to AI. And what followed was two years of learning what these tools could and couldn't do — and watching that ceiling get higher every few months. Phase 1 — ChatGPT (2 years ago) ChatGPT was the obvious starting point. Everyone was talking about it. I figured if it could write essays and answer questions, it could write Lua. It could. Sort of. The code it produced had frequent errors.