金 OKANE LAND

The Primer

Vendor-neutral, written to be useful first. How to actually use the AI tools you work with, from coding to content to automation.

A coral woodblock starfish priming a board with a brush beside a can of primer, the mascot of The Primer.
A hand-inked context window drawn as a shelf, with CLAUDE.md sitting on it permanently, skills and subagents waiting in a drawer marked on demand, and hooks pinned outside the shelf entirely, the mascot starfish weighing each one.

Tools & Stacks

Hooks, skills, subagents, plugins, CLAUDE.md: what each is for

Five ways to extend Claude Code, and the confusion is real: hooks or skills, skills or subagents, CLAUDE.md or a skill. They differ on one axis that decides everything else, when each one enters the context window. Anthropic just published that axis and rebuilt around it. Here is the tested taxonomy, with the token cost of each measured on a clean session.

akira · 6 min

 A hand-inked two-panel: on the left a minimal MCP server as a small labelled box with one tool wired in, on the right six directory mailboxes with three flags up, one envelope stuck half-in, two question marks, the mascot starfish posting a letter.

Tools & Stacks

Ship an MCP server for your product

Most "how to build an MCP server" guides stop at hello-world and skip the part builders actually ask next: does anyone find it? We shipped one for this site, eleven days before the spec went final, so this walkthrough comes with real distribution receipts, including the submission that is still stuck. Here is the minimal build under the current spec, and the real reach.

akira · 6 min

 A hand-inked trail map from an idea lightbulb to a shipped app flag, passing six labelled gates: scope, tool, the 70% wall, deploy, security, users, the Okane Land starfish walking the path with a small pack.

Getting Started

How to build an app with AI from scratch

AI gets a non-coder from idea to a working demo quickly. Then the same person hits the same walls, in the same order: scope, tool choice, the 70% problem, the free-tier cliffs, security, and getting paid. This is the map of that whole path, with the real numbers at each wall and the deeper guide that gets you over it.

akira · 7 min

 A hand-inked split panel: on the left a closed box labelled forget the code exists, on the right the same box opened with three arrows reading it, explaining it, rebuilding it, the Okane Land starfish holding a pencil over the open box.

Skills & Craft

Can you actually learn while vibe coding?

By its coiner's own definition, pure vibe coding is the choice not to learn: forget the code exists. So learning starts the moment you break that definition on purpose. Here are the three cheap moves that turn a delegated diff into a mental model, and the reason your own sense that you understood it cannot be trusted.

akira · 7 min

 A hand-inked workflow canvas labeled one run equals one execution, with a coral trigger node branching through a step node and a coral AI node into a checked output, a dashed error lane to an alert bell, and an inked arrow to a client invoice card with a coral total, a monthly retainer chip, and a read-the-license footnote; the Okane Land seal and wordmark top-left and the starfish working from the lower left, the mascot of this n8n guide.

Tools & Stacks

How to use n8n, and when to write the code instead

n8n bills a workflow run as one execution, no matter how many steps it takes, and that pricing quirk is why the AI client-work trade settled on it. The earnings underneath are modest, recurring, and real, the guru numbers are mostly marketing, and the license has a clause most people selling builds have never read.

akira · 9 min

 A hand-inked prompt card with a coral spark turning, via an inked arrow, into an app window whose credit meter runs low, with a dotted exit arrow leading to a coral git branch labeled your repo; the Okane Land seal and wordmark top-left and the starfish watching from the lower left, the mascot of this Lovable guide.

Tools & Stacks

How to use Lovable, and when to take the code and go

Prompt in, working app out. The speed is real and front-loaded: the demo lands the same afternoon, the real costs land once you ship it as more than a demo, and the exit ramp, GitHub then Cursor, is part of driving it well.

akira · 9 min

 A hand-inked phone ad with a too-perfect AI spokesperson marked with an AI info chip, beside a hook matrix of six variant cards with one coral winner; the Okane Land seal and wordmark top-left and the starfish directing with a clapperboard from the lower left, the mascot of this AI UGC guide.

Marketing & Ads

How to make AI UGC ads, and when to pay a human instead

AI UGC tools sell a spokesperson video for the price of a coffee, and the working use case is narrower than the demos: high-volume hook testing. The money is in cheap volume, dozens of guesses for the price of one human clip, and the ceiling is trust: the moment an ad must carry a real claim or a real feeling, you hire the person.

akira · 9 min

 A hand-inked board of the vibe coding stack: two coral slot cards, the editor Cursor at twenty dollars a month and the agent Claude Code at twenty, beside dashed optional cards for app builders and same-slot twins, with an inked arrow to a coral price tag reading forty dollars a month before the meter moves.

Tools & Stacks

The vibe coding stack: what to pay for and what to skip

The whole vibe coding stack, slot by slot: what each one really costs, what the field runs by the numbers, the app-builder question, and the version that costs nothing.

akira · 6 min

 A hand-inked terminal window with a coral $ prompt and a command, three checkmarked steps, a plus-minus diff, and a coral block cursor; the Okane Land seal and wordmark top-left and the starfish working from the lower left, the mascot of this Claude Code guide.

Tools & Stacks

How to run Claude Code, and when to take back the keyboard

It ships on the same subscription as your Claude chats and drains the same usage pool. Delegation is the whole skill: given a bounded task and a real review it earns the price, unwatched it produces confident wreckage, and for quick in-editor edits Cursor stays the better buy.

akira · 9 min

 A hand-inked answer card with a coral spark in the ask bar, an answer carrying three coral numbered citations, and a row of three numbered source chips; the Okane Land seal and wordmark top-left and the starfish reading from the lower left, the mascot of this Perplexity guide.

Tools & Stacks

Where Perplexity earns its keep, and where it doesn't

Perplexity does the searching and the reading; the checking stays your job. A cited answer reads like a verified one and is not, and the tool pays for itself exactly as long as you keep clicking the footnotes.

akira · 8 min

 A hand-inked code-editor window with a few code lines and a coral text cursor, the Okane Land seal and wordmark top-left, and the starfish reviewing a diff, the mascot of this Cursor guide.

Tools & Stacks

How to actually use Cursor, and where it stops being worth it

The Tab autocomplete is the reason people stay; the credit meter is the reason they watch the dashboard. Tab by itself can carry the price, credits are the permanent catch, and the agent repays exactly the attention you give its diffs.

akira · 9 min