Build your own Substack with Claude Code

A newsletter publishing platform: write posts in a rich editor, publish to web and email, free and paid subscribers and more.

1–2 weeksMore screens, accounts and a backend

The Claude Code prompt

Build my own take on Substack: a newsletter publishing platform. Give it an original name, logo, colours and copy, and do not use Substack's name, branding or assets.

Version one should have:
- Write posts in a rich editor
- Publish to web and email
- Free and paid subscribers
- Archive and about page
- Comments

The hard part: Email deliverability. Send through Resend or Postmark with proper SPF and DKIM.

How to build it:
1. Read this folder first. If it is empty, set up Next.js (App Router, TypeScript, Tailwind) with Postgres through Prisma or Supabase, and Supabase Auth or Auth.js for sign-in. Write a short PLAN.md with the data model, screens, third-party services and what you are leaving out of version one.
2. Build the core loop end to end before anything else: write posts in a rich editor, working with real data saved to the database.
3. Add the rest of the features one at a time, and seed realistic demo data so every screen looks alive.
4. Keep API keys in environment variables, and put any paid service behind a small interface with a local stub, so the app runs on a fresh machine without accounts.
5. Run it, click through every screen on desktop and mobile widths, fix what breaks, and finish with a summary of what works, what is stubbed and how to deploy it.

Paste it into Claude Code in an empty folder. It plans first, so read PLAN.md and steer before it starts building.

Version one

  • Write posts in a rich editor
  • Publish to web and email
  • Free and paid subscribers
  • Archive and about page
  • Comments

The hard part

Email deliverability. Send through Resend or Postmark with proper SPF and DKIM.

Make it yours: a niche Substack ignores, an original name and brand, and one feature it does badly done well.

More to build

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