Building Repeatables in Claude: Skills, CLI vs MCP and Token Discipline | Go With The Flow

Claude Skills, CLI vs MCP and Token Discipline with Ritu Java | Seller Sessions

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Ritu Java and Danny McMillan on building agentic skills, choosing CLI over MCP, plan mode discipline and the short window to ship before token costs reset.

Episode Summary

Week 4 of the month, Go With The Flow, and Ritu Java is back from her travels. The world has shipped fast since the last episode: Codex 5.5, Claude 4.7, an Amazon Ads MCP and a fresh round of panic over the rumoured removal of Claude Code from the $20 plan (it was a 2% AB test, not a rollout). Ritu and Danny use the noise to make a sharper point: this is the moment to stop chasing models and start building repeatable systems on the platform you have already chosen.

Ritu walks through the three eras of PPC Ninja's automation stack. Apps Script bulk file generators three years ago, Netlify hosted UI apps last year, and now agentic skills that her team chats with in plain English to produce upload ready Amazon bulk files. The same shift applies to data: BigQuery accessed through the Google Cloud CLI rather than through MCP, because CLI is leaner on tokens and works better when the job is heavy on data rather than tool surface. Danny mirrors the move with his event-ops CLI for WordPress, WooCommerce, Stripe and FooEvents reconciliation, and his four tier ExtractFlow cascade (HTTP, headless, stealth, agentic) that bypasses the limits of any single browser tool.

The second half is a discipline talk. Plan mode every time. Push back on the first plan because Claude over engineers by default. 30% of your time on workflow scaffolding so the other 70% can be real building. The 21 day Claude rule: when a shiny new tool fires the dopamine, wait 21 days before refactoring around it. Left brain tasks (counting, SQL, deterministic logic) belong in scripts. Right brain tasks (judgment, creativity, hypotheses) belong in the model. Mix them inside a single skill. Skills are micro pieces of your workflow, not magic, and Claude can write them for you from an existing SOP.

Key Topics

The three eras of PPC Ninja automation: Apps Script, Netlify UI apps, agentic skills
CLI vs MCP: when to choose each and why CLI is more token efficient for data heavy work
Token economics, the rumoured $20 plan change and why it was a 2% AB test
The short window before subsidised tokens get repriced
Plan mode discipline and the "push back on plan one" rule
Danny's 30 / 70 framework: workflow scaffolding vs building
The 21 day Claude rule for resisting tool churn
Left brain vs right brain task design inside a single skill
The PPC Ninja "5 Whys" skill: deterministic SQL plus non deterministic hypotheses
Claude.md, Gemini.md, Skills.yaml and the emerging Agents.md standard
Skills for beginners: let Claude write them from your SOP
Skill cascading: research, article, LinkedIn post, tweets, slide deck in one chain

Timestamps

[00:01] Welcome back, Week 4 Go With The Flow, Ritu returns from travels
[00:17] Codex 5.5, Claude 4.7 and the "no one is writing code anymore" reality
[02:01] Ritu on the three eras of PPC Ninja automation
[02:42] Era 1: Apps Script bulk file generators in Google Sheets
[03:46] Era 2: Netlify hosted UI apps with input fields
[04:48] Era 3: Agentic skills, the bulk file skill trained on Amazon templates
[06:22] Cloud talking to BigQuery through the Google Cloud CLI
[07:00] Danny: what is a CLI and why it matters for token use
[08:00] Amazon Advertising MCP vs CLI based access to the same data
[09:33] WordPress horrible to drive via MCP, easy via CLI
[10:00] Danny's event-ops CLI: tickets, food tickets, WooCommerce, Stripe reconciliation
[12:13] ExtractFlow four tier cascade: soft, medium, stealth, agentic
[13:46] Why CLI for the heavy stuff, MCP for the soft touch
[14:13] AWS CLI: chat to Claude, push HTML blog posts live in two minutes
[15:33] The overwhelm problem and the 5,000costbehindthe5,000costbehindthe100 plan
[17:35] The $20 plan rumour: it was a 2% AB test, not a rollout
[19:38] Build repeatables, not one offs
[20:38] Danny: pick a platform and stop chasing benchmarks
[21:16] The 21 day Claude rule for new tools
[22:16] Plan mode every time, push back on plan one, get the second plan
[23:02] Why am I building it, who is it for, what am I building
[23:30] The 30 / 70 split: workflow scaffolding vs real building
[25:13] Why long six to fourteen hour Claude runs are usually inefficiency
[27:12] Compounding 1% a day across a year
[27:47] "I build the things that build things"
[28:00] Architecture vs apps: filling the gaps between A and B
[29:06] Left brain vs right brain task design
[30:01] Why throwing 80/20 at a sales drop diagnosis fails
[31:33] The PPC Ninja 5 Whys skill: deterministic plus non deterministic in one flow
[34:32] Claude.md, Gemini.md, skills.yaml and the agents.md standard
[40:53] Beginners: let Claude write the skill from your SOP, use the interview pattern
[42:39] Skill cascading: URL to research to article to LinkedIn post to tweets to slides
[44:42] Mixing deterministic and non deterministic inside a single skill
[45:39] Wrap up, signal to noise, who is it for

Key Takeaways

Pick a platform and stop chasing models. A new model ships every week. Time spent benchmarking is time not building. Double down on Claude (or whichever you chose), use the 21 day rule, and let the ecosystem catch up to the shiny thing in your feed.
CLI for heavy work, MCP for soft touch. MCP loads tools and skills into context and burns tokens. CLI uses programs already on your machine. For data heavy jobs (BigQuery, AWS, WordPress at scale), CLI wins. For light cross app workflows, MCP is fine.
Build repeatables, not one offs. Subsidised tokens will not last. The 100planreportedlycostsAnthropic100planreportedlycostsAnthropic5,000 to serve. Spend the window building scaffolding that compounds, not 14 hour vibe coding runs.
Plan mode every time, then push back. Claude over engineers by default. Generate the plan, then say "you have over engineered this, although I want it elegant, go back and review." Plan two is the one you start from.
30% on workflow, 70% on building. Each new dependency, MCP, skill or repo you add to your workflow compounds across every future project. Stop building only the apps. Build the things that build the apps.
Left brain in scripts, right brain in the model. Counting, SQL, deterministic logic belongs in Python the moment you can offload it. Save the model for hypotheses, judgment and creativity. The PPC Ninja 5 Whys skill mixes both inside one flow.
Skills are micro pieces, not magic. Take an SOP, ask Claude to interview you with decision panels, and let it write the skill. Then cascade skills together: URL to research to long form article to LinkedIn post to tweets to slide deck.

Notable Quotes

"Instead of doing one offs, it is time to build repeatables. The more people can learn that skill now, the better it will be, because a year from now you may not have access to the same tokens." Ritu Java

"If you see something and it looks sexy and it has sex and sizzle and your dopamine is screaming to go after it, wait 21 days. Either Claude will have it, or someone will have a repo, and you can combine it." Danny McMillan

"Always use plan mode. Never accept plan number one. Tell Claude: you have over engineered this, although I want it elegant, go back and review. Then start from plan two." Danny McMillan

"I build the things that build things. I build the scaffolding the team needs so they can build on top of it." Danny McMillan

"Spend 30% of your time on your workflow and 70% building. The 30% compounds across every project." Danny McMillan

"If we jus...