From AI Chat to Claude Code in 3 Seconds

#claudecode #productivity #opensource #cli

The Problem

You know the flow. You brainstorm with AI chat. You land on a plan. You get a nice CLAUDE.md generated.

Then you:

Download CLAUDE.md
Open terminal
Create a project folder
Move CLAUDE.md into it
git init
Open your editor
Start Claude Code
Type "Start implementation"

That's a lot of steps.

I wanted it in 3.

What I Built

github.com/m4suisui/kickstart

Usage

# Install
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/m4suisui/kickstart/main/install | bash

# With CLAUDE.md contents in your clipboard:
kickstart <project-name>

What It Does

Creates ~/bin, places the executable, adds it to PATH
Reads your clipboard and creates the project folder with CLAUDE.md
git init
Resolves the Claude Code path and generates tasks.json
Opens your editor, which reads tasks.json and runs claude "Start implementation"

Working directory and editor are configurable via .kickstartrc (defaults to ~/projects and VS Code).

3 Actions

Copy CLAUDE.md contents to clipboard
Open terminal
Run kickstart <project-name>

Pair it with a keyboard shortcut (Shortcuts.app on Mac, PowerAutomate on Windows) and you can skip the terminal entirely.

A Few Notes

--yolo mode: Add --yolo to launch Claude Code with --dangerously-skip-permissions. Set ALWAYS_YOLO=true in .kickstartrc to live dangerously every time. I do.

Clipboard safety: If your clipboard starts with -n or -e, echo interprets them as flags and eats your data. Using printf '%s\n' instead. Learned that the hard way.

Editor agnostic: Defaults to VS Code, but change EDITOR_CMD and EDITOR_ARGS in .kickstartrc to use Cursor, Windsurf, Antigravity, whatever you like.

Who This Is For

If you do everything inside Claude Code from the start, this is useless to you. But if you like planning in chat first, this saves you a few minutes every time.

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