The 6 levels of building products with AI, from prompting to production apps
aakashgupta · x · 2026-10-16
Ankit Shukla of HelloPM sorts every way of building with AI into 6 levels, advising you to use the lowest level that works and climb only when it breaks:
- L0 Prompting: straight ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini for one-off questions.
- L1 Reusable prompts: save recurring prompts as Google Gems or custom GPTs (e.g., a PRD Gem, a resume Gem).
- L2 Skills and connectors: where real ROI starts. Use Claude Code or Codex; a skill holds instructions for one task and loads on demand. Trick: finish a task in Claude, then have Claude turn it into a skill. Connect analytics for a 10am product brief.
- L3 Vibe coding: Ankit picks free Google AI Studio; Lovable and Bolt also work. Move up when work must run unattended.
- L4 Workflow tools: n8n or Make — e.g., a lead gets researched, scored, and routed to the right salesperson, with the built-in AI drafting the workflow from a prompt.
- L5 Production software: Cursor, MCPs into AWS/Vercel, Claude Code or Codex. Ankit replaced a $550–700/month email platform in one night; it now runs for $110/month.
Stop debating models: his team built the same four sites with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and DeepSeek — all four shipped. For most PM work, L2 is enough.
Related event: HelloPM's Six-Level Framework for Building Products with AI(2 posts)→
More from coding & agent
- Agentic sandbox WorldBox doubles GPT-6 Astra's MazeBench score, 23 to 61 gems — ZhitingHu · 2026-10-16
- Two prompts: Gemini 4 Argon turns a single-player game into full multiplayer — chongdashu · 2026-10-16
- Anthropic and Gray Swan launch $300,000 indirect prompt injection red-teaming contest — bcherny · 2026-10-16
- Vercel launches Token Pass: $30/mo for $80 of GLM 5.3 and Kimi K3 credits — evilrabbit_ · 2026-10-16
- Muse Spark Open goes live on Together AI as a Day 0 launch partner — togethercompute · 2026-10-16
- Muse Spark Open: whole-project 1M context, multimodal input, long-horizon self-correction — togethercompute · 2026-10-16