Shipping a side project with Claude Code: the workflow that actually finishes

Side projects stall because the boring parts — auth, forms, payment integration, deployment config — drain motivation before the interesting stuff gets built. Claude Code fixes that. Those boring parts are exactly where it works fastest. Build the boring parts first Conventional wisdom says validate first, build MVP, don't code until you know people want it. That's right for commercial products. For side projects the real problem is different: most die because you run out of motivation before they're done. The fix: use Claude to do the boring infrastructure work at the start, so all that's left is the interesting stuff. Auth, database schema, deployment pipeline, payment integration — give Claude these tasks first. They're tedious to write, Claude handles them well, and getting them done early means you can spend your motivated time on the actual product. Timebox sessions to 90 minutes Side project sessions should be short and focused. "I have 90 minutes, let's finish the user profile