Here's how to get the most out of Claude Code at work.

Build an operating system:

Mike Bal, Head of Product and AI at David's Bridal walked me through his complete PM operating system.

He connects everything through Cursor and Claude Desktop so you can automate all your boring work and focus on the high leverage stuff.

🎬 Watch Now: youtu.be/1C0daBcDBig

Available Everywhere

Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/7…

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✍️ Key Takeaways:

1. Make Claude Code Your Home Base

Stop switching between 20 tabs. Mike runs Claude Code inside Cursor's terminal and connects every other tool to it. JIRA, Figma, Confluence, GitHub, Sanity CMS. You talk to Claude Code, Claude Code talks to your tools.

2. Connect Everything Through MCP

Model Context Protocol is what makes this work. You give Claude Code an API key, point it at your tools, and now you can say "did that PR ever get pushed?" or "add a honeymoon car rental task to Sanity" without opening a single other app.

3. Check Dev Progress Without Leaving the Terminal

"Was this issue on this project completed?" "Is that bug fix PR still waiting?" Claude Code queries JIRA and GitHub for you and gives you the answer inline. Mike does this mid-PRD writing so he never breaks flow.

4. Validate Designs Against Your PRD

Pull your Confluence requirements and a Figma frame link into one Claude Code session. Ask "what did I miss?" Mike caught that onboarding data wasn't showing on the vision board. 30 seconds vs. 1-2 hours of manual comparison.

5. Write Tickets With Codebase Context

Point Claude Code at your GitHub repo before writing specs. It checks how the feature is currently built so your tickets don't conflict with the existing implementation. Your engineers will notice the difference immediately.

6. Build Internal Tools Yourself

Mike migrated spreadsheet content into Sanity CMS, built a colorization app for e-commerce, and prototyped a community app. All through Claude Code in natural language. No engineering resources needed.

7. Feed It Vetted Research, Not Everything

Use Manus for deep research. It returns CSVs, source docs, and summaries. Then selectively bring the best outputs into Claude Code for requirements and technical strategy. Don't dump everything in. LLMs anchor to whatever you feed them. Mike calls this the "conspiracy theorist LLM problem."

8. It Just Takes $60/Month

$20 Claude + $20 Manus + free Cursor. That's the minimum viable AI PM stack. Start there, show your team the velocity, then upgrade.

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📌 Want this guide in text? Comment ‘AI PM OS’ + DM me and I’ll reply with it.

Have you built a PM OS yet? If not, why?