43 releases in 5 weeks: how Claude Code kept a desktop AI image editor from falling apart
Direction_Mountain · reddit · 2026-10-09
A developer shared a detailed postmortem of Scumble, a free open-source (GPL-3.0) desktop AI image editor built almost entirely with Claude Code: started as a ComfyUI node on Sep 4, became a desktop app three days later, now at release 43 — Electron plus a Rust/WebAssembly tile engine for 15,000-pixel images, SAM2 and depth maps built in, and an MCP server with 109 tools so Claude Desktop/Code can drive the editor. Git history: 83k lines of app JavaScript, as much test/tooling code, 43k lines of Markdown plans.
What kept it together:
- CLAUDE.md as project memory, not style guide: settled decisions, current state, numbered request list, and a "traps worth keeping" section — before it existed, every third session tried to relitigate Electron
- One task per session, then /clear: an eight-step session pushed context to 85% and quality dropped
- Plans with "as built" notes: the next session reads what actually happened, not its assumptions
- State the effect in one sentence before coding: one feature got fully built before he realized he didn't want it
- Test the real app, by risk: a gate runner drives a fresh instance over DevTools; full testing only where data can be lost
- Few agents, each with a job: builder, test writer, and a skeptic; parallel workflows burned his usage limit in an afternoon
Favorite traps: globalCompositeOperation = "copy" clears the whole canvas; Chromium premultiplies alpha on typed-array WebGL uploads; 65,536px canvases silently draw nothing; rAF never fires in hidden windows; and every test run now gets its own --user-data-dir after a benchmark overwrote his open document.
More from coding & agent
- Claude Code Pushes Urgent Security Update Across All Installations — umeshonai · 2026-10-23
- Claude cut a 2.6-hour video export to 20 minutes — but only after being told to rebuild the server — byhewar · 2026-10-23
- 3 flight-booking rules my AI agent checks that I'd never do by hand — Efistoffeles · 2026-10-23
- OpenJet claims Qwen3.8-27B coding runs 1.9x faster than llama.cpp on one RTX 3090 — JeremyCMorgan · 2026-10-23
- Building an autonomous SEO agent in Hermes with three skills: programmatic pages, Keywords Everywhere, DataForSEO — EXM7777 · 2026-10-23
- Building a sports betting AI agent with onchain execution and human approval by default: architecture and lessons — Dry-Comfortable-2678 · 2026-10-23