SINGAPORE: Frank Chester Tan started his tech exploits when he became a dad in October 2025.
Like many parents, he and his wife Estee Cheng, both 32, would log their infant’s daily feeding, sleep and diaper change patterns to compare against national developmental milestones.
It soon overwhelmed them.
After five months of struggling with the task using pen and paper, Tan decided to build an app for this purpose using Claude Code, a low-code tool designed for those without technical background, on the advice of his boss.
The content strategist for Australian technology multinational Appen, who had no coding experience, was intimidated at first.
This is because Claude Code is launched on Mac Terminal, a text-based interface typically used by developers to run commands.
“It was daunting... Terminal looked like the Matrix,” said Tan, referring to the cascading lines of code on a black screen that resembled the film’s visuals.
The tool, which comes with a premium Claude Pro subscription, costs S$30 (US$23) a month.
But Tan did not need to input coding language.
Instead, he used natural language prompts – good old English words and sentences.
Next, he created a four-page document of prompts specifying detailed features such as a private dashboard for both parents to share data in real time, and one-tap fields to input milk feeds and diaper changes.
Claude Code provided him with step-by-step instructions to build the app.
“You have to be as detailed as you can. If you put rubbish in, rubbish will come out,” said Tan.
He went through multiple iterations, adding new features and fine-tuning the app along the way.
AI can get things wrong and its work needs to be reviewed, he cautioned.
For example, when he added a feature to track his child’s allergic reactions to new foods, Claude Code pulled information from the internet that wrongly listed finned fish as a top allergen in Singapore.
Suspecting that there was an error as shellfish is more commonly flagged, Tan checked the sources and corrected the information.
Another new feature compares the baby’s sleep, milk intake and diaper change patterns against recommendations from HealthHub and KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital.
He also instructed Claude Code to use another chatbot called Perplexity AI for research queries as the latter provides cited sources automatically.
This makes it easier for users to verify information themselves, which is a step that cannot be skipped because even Perplexity AI has been known to cite fictitious studies.
Building the baby tracker app allowed Tan to pick up practical AI prompting skills, which he later applied at work.
His work requires him to produce web pages in multiple languages to serve different markets.
He used to copy English text onto the Google Translate webpage multiple times to get the different translations he needed.
With his newly acquired Claude Code skills, he built a translation tool, and he now needs to press only one button to translate from English to 48 languages.
The tool he built also offers more nuanced translations.
He prompted the tool to understand the meaning, intent and persuasive purpose of the English text first before replicating the text in other languages.
He also instructed the tool to write the new content as a native writer would, with no trace of English structure, rhythm or logic.
Tan said he believes that AI will be an essential basic skill in the future, and urged people to take a leap and experiment with it.
“’The fear is that AI is very complicated, but trying is the best way to learn.
“For some tools like Claude Code, even if you use broken English, it can still roughly understand what you want,” said Tan.
Tutorial: How to create a baby tracker app
Download Claude Code. Launch it using a computer’s in-built Mac Terminal, a text-based interface typically used by developers to run commands.
Write detailed prompts, such as “Allow both parents to access the same private app”, “Track milk feeds, diapers, and symptoms” and “Auto-calculate daily totals”.
Instruct Claude Code to benchmark the baby’s sleep, milk intake and diaper patterns against national recommendations. A detailed prompt looks like this: “Compare baby’s sleep, naps, milk, and diaper changes with HealthHub and KKH guidelines, based on the baby’s current age and update the comparison as the baby grows”.
Prompt Claude Code to build the web app, and provide step-by-step instructions. Example: “I want to create a baby tracker app using the detailed features stated in the uploaded document. Provide me with a step-by-step guide as I have no coding knowledge.”
Set up accounts on three developer platforms GitHub, Supabase and Vercel. GitHub stores the code. Supabase manages the app’s database and user authentication. Vercel hosts the app online.
Connect Claude Code to all three platforms
App is live and accessible through a web link. - The Straits Times/ANN
