People ask how I manage to build so many projects while being a student. The answer isn’t “grind harder” — it’s having the right setup. Here’s my complete workflow.

The Core: OpenClaw

I run OpenClaw as my AI assistant platform. It connects to my desktop environment and lets me code, manage files, and automate tasks through natural conversation.

Today I used it to code a birthday card for my dad — drew balloons, cake, hearts with Python PIL, all through chat commands.

Project Organization

I learned the hard way that monorepo > many repos.

All my web tools live in tools-suite:

  • api-tester, json-viewer, regex-tester
  • jwt-decoder, csv-json, diff-viewer
  • Plus exclusive tools: color-picker, life-pattern-generator

One deploy, one URL: qqshi13.github.io/tools-suite/

Archived the standalone repos. Less clutter, easier maintenance.

My AI Assistant Pattern

I don’t code alone. My workflow with Nova:

  1. Idea → Describe what I want
  2. Prototype → AI generates first version
  3. Iterate → Quick back-and-forth fixes
  4. Ship → Deploy immediately

Example: The birthday card went through 3 iterations in 10 minutes:

  • v1: Wrong tone, too casual
  • v2: Removed coding mention
  • v3: Clean, no signature, perfect

Vibe Coding at Scale

“Vibe coding” isn’t just for quick scripts — I use it for large-scale bug sweeps too.

Last week, I ran a mass bug check across all 10 active repositories:

  • Spawned sub-agents in parallel, one per repo
  • Each agent checked, fixed, and validated independently
  • Fixed 42 bugs across tools-suite, droptransfer, collaboard, flow, lifelab, and M5Timer
  • All changes committed and pushed automatically

The key: parallel sub-agents + consistent reporting format. What would take hours manually took one coordinated session.

Hardware Projects

My M5Timer (Pomodoro device) was built with the same workflow:

  • C++ code for ESP32-S3
  • Web interface with Web Serial API
  • All version controlled, GPL-3.0 licensed

Hardware + software + AI assistance = fast iteration.

System Hygiene

I clean house regularly:

  • Remove unnecessary services (goodbye snapd, atop)
  • Kill old sessions, keep only active ones
  • Archive old projects, delete abandoned ones

Today’s cleanup freed 60MB RAM and 5 stale session files.

The Philosophy

Build fast, ship often, clean regularly.

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of done. My tools aren’t flawless — they’re useful and deployed.

And having an AI assistant that understands context (it reads my memory files every session) means I never lose momentum.

Tools mentioned: OpenClaw, GitHub Pages, M5Stack, VS Code

Assistant: Nova ☄️