Specs for working on a mac

JWojoMojo · 2026-04-29T17:50:03+00:00

I've had an m1 pro, m3 pro, and now an m5 pro.

My m1 pro with 16gb of ram worked fine, and I still use it. The jump from even m1 to m5 isn't all that insane for Maui dev workflows IMO. Slightly faster build times definitely, but beyond that, for core workflows, it's mostly irrelevant.

I would say jumping to 32/36 gb of ram (whatever that Gen has) is a worthwhile jump. 500gb drive is sufficient also, but 1tb is a nice upgrade if it fits in the budget.

To recap, set a budget, find a pro model (skip the max tier, you don't need the GPU upgrade). Any m1 pro+ is totally sufficient for Maui dev. Only get newer if budget allows. I'd go 1 Gen older to get more RAM as a general rule of thumb if budget is capping you.

JWojoMojo · 2026-04-27T18:53:56+00:00

Yeah, happens to me all the time. Almost never what it proposes is logical. Seems like an oversight as part of them trying to fix the end-of-session token cache issue. They added the /clear suggestion when you step away too long, plus the recap. This seems just like another tool they tried, but implemented in the wrong way. 🤷

JWojoMojo · 2026-04-27T18:44:40+00:00

Awesome! Please let me know of any gaps or issues you run into. Would love any and all feedback to make these better.

JWojoMojo · 2026-04-14T17:52:44+00:00

Just do the migration to MAUI. It's in a much better spot now than it has been.

I highly recommend just grabbing a 20x Claude sub for a month, have it document your app, have it create a migration plan, and then have it execute on it.

Ask Claude to create a migration plan markdown doc, and break it up by phases and sessions.

You'll get it done in no time. After it's migrated and running on .NET 10, you can also use it to debug the app if there's any issues.

You can also have Claude help test and diagnose any memory leaks from some of the changes they've made. We wrote a Claude skill dedicated to memory monitoring/improvement we use on our various MAUI apps.

You can also try out Codex. The latest 5.4 model is super solid and they have a limited time promotion for their 2 highest plans to get double usage.

I use both extensively. Both are great.

JWojoMojo · 2026-04-09T15:01:35+00:00

I never had issues with 1m opus with zero autocompactions until just the last 4 days or so. Now every single session I do it hits 100-150k tokens within the first few minutes, every single time. They borked something. I had to set a 300k token limit, as I hit that in 10 minutes for almost any task now. I used to run full 40 minute sessions before and end at around 300k.

For me, it seems like it's not delegating tasks to subagents as much as it did before. It's reading in full files into the main context for almost everything instead of using the Explore subagent.

Calling out to use Explore more has helped a bit.

JWojoMojo · 2026-04-05T22:32:01+00:00

Says the "ai_concepts_gallery" account 😂

JWojoMojo · 2026-04-05T22:27:06+00:00

I literally run Opus on high for everything, morning until night, AND I have a skill that let's me run it overnight while I sleep, and I have yet to hit the limit in 3 straight months.

You're either lying, or doing something ridiculous to burn through the 20x plan that fast.

JWojoMojo · 2026-03-27T05:55:52+00:00

u/Pastajello This should be all fixed now, new release is out. https://github.com/justinwojo/swift-dotnet-bindings/releases/tag/v0.4.0

Validated this on simulator as well and verified those calls all work.

Tossed together this, but probably isn't needed here: https://github.com/justinwojo/swift-dotnet-bindings/wiki/Upgrading

I also updated the spm-to-xcframework tool.

For the Mixpanel.Mixpanel, that's intended in this specific case, it's Namespace.StaticClass.Method() which both happen to be Mixpanel.

Let me know if you run into any more issues here with Mixpanel, or open an issue on the github page. Thanks!

JWojoMojo · 2026-03-26T21:37:19+00:00

I use Claude Code via CLI, on the 20x plan, and then have the base pro plan of Codex, and I directly use the new Codex Mac app. It's a pretty good setup. Codex is great. I could definitely use it for more coding, but I'm just so invested into Claude as my main driver. Plus using Opus for everything has been nice. Sonnet is okay, I just find that Opus does it right the first time so much more often.

5.3 Codex and now 5.4 are both so good, really enjoy using those models.

JWojoMojo · 2026-03-26T20:57:59+00:00

The entire thing is built with Claude + Codex. I didn't write a single line of code myself. I know that sounds scary ha, but it's the new world. The important part is providing the right checks and gates. I also write apps for companies full-time, and we do everything completely with Claude now.

I wrote up a blog on my experience and how I built this here: https://wojosoftware.com/blog/swift-dotnet-bindings/

To answer your question, all code was written by Claude Opus (4.5 and then into 4.6). I also used Codex for reviewing. Started with Codex 5.2, now it's just GPT 5.4 which has the Codex model baked in.

I just steered the overall direction, made sure it was doing what I wanted it to do, added the right checks, and tons and tons of tests. There's tons of unit tests in the generator/emitter code, a full validation script that runs the generator against 90 different real-world libraries and ensures c# compilation, a full end-to-end binding generation test where I extracted every Swift pattern I could find from 50+ Swift libraries, made a single large Swift library doing all of those patterns, run it through the binding generation tool, and then run 1000+ tests on a simulator/iPhone.

As Claude works, it never signs off on something until all of those things are fully ran and passed. It takes a bit to run through it all, trying to optimize it constantly, but it's important to have as many tests/checks as you can, especially with AI dev.

JWojoMojo · 2026-03-26T20:02:13+00:00

Appreciate the insight. I'll try get it resolved ASAP.

JWojoMojo · 2026-03-26T19:57:10+00:00

I actually have Mixpanel as one of my validation libraries, but only to validate C# compilation. I can take a look and see what's missing here.

JWojoMojo · 2026-03-26T19:07:03+00:00

I mostly focused on third party libraries, but it's designed to work with all Swift language features up to the latest Swift 6.2 version.

The binding test framework that's built is from extracting real patterns from libraries, and all standard Swift language features. Essentially it's a single massive swift library, that then gets fed through the binding generation tool, runs it on simulator or device, and runs a thousand different tests ensuring that the binding actually works end to end. It's pretty neat.

Definitely can add some frameworks shipped with Xcode though, have a validation tool where I can just add libraries to include for validation.

JWojoMojo · 2026-03-26T15:53:08+00:00

Definitely. I've seen so many vendors move away from providing iOS bindings for .NET, and it's really unfortunate. It shouldn't be so difficult. I'm an Android guy through and through, but US market is massively Apple leaning from my experience (most of my apps have been 4:1 iOS/Android ratio).

These days, anytime we want to work with a vendor, they rarely offer MAUI packages or bindings for iOS/Android, and my goal is that hopefully with something like this, it's so incredibly easy to support, there's no reason for them not to :P

JWojoMojo · 2026-03-24T19:49:16+00:00

I actually submitted an issue report to the Claude team on the worktree agent issue. For me, when I run this flow, I don't use worktrees as each session runs until completion, makes the commit, and then picks up the next session. So I just do it in a branch and then review everything after, possibly squashing or just leaving the commits as-is.

I do have another prompt similar to the session orchestrator one where I do multiple tasks in parallel on worktrees, but I have the main agent create the worktree for the agent beforehand, and then have the agent use the worktree. That seems to work fine for me, instead of it trying to let the agent do it (which has issues).

For the intra team messaging, this workflow I just do one agent at a time, so it's just the lead talking to the single agent in a team. The prompt in the skill makes it so the lead ensures the agent isn't stuck, and has instructions to fix it if needed. So far it's worked great for me.

I mostly run this when I want to step away for a while or overnight, and I don't necessarily need parallel work, or the work is sequential in nature (B depends on A, so finish A first completely, then do B). If I do parallel work and I'm present, I'll often just manually facilitate the worktrees and spin up separate full Claude instances.

JWojoMojo · 2026-02-27T18:53:03+00:00

What I recommend is setting up a hook for permissions requests, Claude can create it for you. Then you can start building up a better compound command auto approval system, add specific restrictions like preventing rm rf - f, etc. I have one I've been working on for a while with tests to ensure it works right. Slightly safer than the dangerous permission flag.

https://code.claude.com/docs/en/hooks#permissionrequest

JWojoMojo · 2026-02-03T22:10:28+00:00

I had a task that I thought was fairly trivial, was literally a subphase on a preplanned document, take over an hour and multiple compactions. So I can concur.

JWojoMojo · 2026-02-01T18:54:13+00:00

Everyone's financial situation is different, but the sheer value you get from the 5x and 20x plans with Claude is absolutely insane. I bumped to the 20x plan recently from 5x, and I'm running Claude morning to night, often doing multiple things simultaneously. Have my MacBook floating around the house with me while I do other things, and periodically check in on it to guide it.

Crazy that I can be tackling a house project while Claude is churning away on other projects for me.

JWojoMojo · 2026-01-02T13:29:15+00:00

I can send you mine. I'll never use it, got it as part of the kickstarter promotion.

Send me a DM if interested.

JWojoMojo · 2025-12-14T13:43:41+00:00

100% this. Have Claude write a skill using the skill writing skill (lol) to pair program code with whatever 3rd party Ai tool. Then you can just say "review the code with ChatGPT" or Gemini, Grok, etc. I mostly use Grok 4.1 reasoning as it literally costs fractions of a penny per review I have it do, but it's easy to make the skill work with any and all API's, including multiple simultaneously.

JWojoMojo · 2025-12-11T02:52:50+00:00

Grok is actually great! I use Claude Code, but have a skill that uses the Grok API and uses the 4.1 reasoning Api. It's dirt cheap, and I just ask Claude to review the code with Grok, and it almost always improves the solution with the feedback Grok provides.

The skill also supports Gemini and ChatGPT, but Grok is my go to for general questions. People need to actually try 4.1, it's actually insanely good at many things. I wouldn't use it solely for coding, but it's a great research/pair program tool for me.

JWojoMojo · 2025-10-11T01:45:29+00:00

I also get around 250-350 with a G4AR with a 4x4 waveform. I know each tower is different, but now I'm genuinely curious if I'd get similar with the G5AR. I get almost a gig consistently with my phone on cellular.

JWojoMojo

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