Claude Code Secrets for PMs: The Operating System, Skills, and Data Viz

Carl Vellotti returns for his 3rd episode. His first two crossed over 1M views. Today he shows how to turn Claude Code into a full PM operating system with context management, sub-agents, self-checking skills, and Jupyter notebooks. Full Writeup: https://www.news.aakashg.com/p/carl-vellotti-3 Transcript: https://www.aakashg.com/carl-vellotti-podcast-3/ --- Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 1:40 - Does Claude Code still matter vs Cowork and OpenClaw 6:51 - Setting up the context status line 10:41 - Ads 12:03 - Sub-agents for context preservation 17:49 - Creating skills live 23:58 - The ask user questions tool 31:13 - Ads 33:33 - Tool-powered skills with Tavily and Firecrawl 36:57 - CLI vs MCP vs API hierarchy 39:30 - Make slides skill with Puppeteer 43:32 - Auto-invoking skills with hooks 46:49 - Jupyter notebooks for data trust 55:09 - The operating system file structure 1:05:58 - Outro --- 🏆 Thanks to our sponsors: 1. Bolt: Ship AI-powered products 10x faster - https://bolt.new/solutions/product-manager?utm_source=Promoted&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=aakash-product-growth 2. Amplitude: The market-leader in product analytics - https://amplitude.com/session-replay?utm_campaign=session-replay-launch-2025&utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=organic-social&utm_content=productgrowthpodcast 3. Pendo: The #1 software experience management platform - http://www.pendo.io/aakash 4. NayaOne: Airgapped cloud-agnostic sandbox - https://nayaone.com/aakash/ 5. Product Faculty: Get $550 off their #1 AI PM Certification with my link - https://maven.com/product-faculty/ai-product-management-certification?promoCode=AAKASH550C7 --- Key Takeaways: 1. Context management is the real skill - A single web search eats 10% of your context. Run /context to see what is consuming it. System prompt and MCPs take 10-16% before you type one message. 2. Sub-agents save 20x context - Delegate research to a sub-agent. Same task costs 0.5% instead of 10%. Your main session only gets the summary. 3. Replace MCPs with CLIs - MCPs eat context by existing. CLIs have zero overhead. GitHub CLI, Vercel CLI, Google Workspace CLI are all dramatically more efficient. 4. Powerful skills need zero code - Anthropic's front-end design plugin is just a good prompt. No APIs or tooling. Just rules that tell Claude "do not look like AI." 5. Give Claude self-checking tools - The make slides skill uses Puppeteer to screenshot output, measure overflow, and fix issues before you see them. 6. Repeat prompts for better quality - A Google paper showed pasting a prompt twice helps. Tell Claude to double-check against skill instructions after the first pass. 7. Use hooks to auto-invoke skills - A user_prompt_submit hook matches your words against skill keywords instantly. Zero context cost. 8. Jupyter notebooks solve data trust - Every analysis shows exact code, inputs, and outputs. Traceable and reproducible. 9. Build an operating system - Knowledge folder for people context. Projects folder for task isolation. Tools folder for scripts. CLAUDE.md for identity. 10. The people folder compounds - Connect meeting transcription. After every meeting, update each person's dossier. Every prompt gets more specific over time. --- 👨‍💻 Where to find Carl Vellotti: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlvellotti/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/carlvellotti Newsletter: The Full-Stack PM 👨‍💻 Where to find Aakash: Twitter: https://www.x.com/aakashg0 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aakashgupta/ Newsletter: https://www.news.aakashg.com #claudecode #aipm --- 🧠 About Product Growth: The world's largest podcast focused solely on product + growth, with over 200K+ listeners. 🔔 Subscribe and turn on notifications to get more videos like this.

Aakash GuptahostCarl Vellottiguest

Mar 30, 20261h 6mWatch on YouTube ↗

EPISODE INFO

Released: March 30, 2026
Duration: 1h 6m
Channel: Aakash Gupta
Watch on YouTube: ▶ Open ↗

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Carl Vellotti returns for his 3rd episode. His first two crossed over 1M views. Today he shows how to turn Claude Code into a full PM operating system with context management, sub-agents, self-checking skills, and Jupyter notebooks. Full Writeup: https://www.news.aakashg.com/p/carl-vellotti-3 Transcript: https://www.aakashg.com/carl-vellotti-podcast-3/ --- Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 1:40 - Does Claude Code still matter vs Cowork and OpenClaw 6:51 - Setting up the context status line 10:41 - Ads 12:03 - Sub-agents for context preservation 17:49 - Creating skills live 23:58 - The ask user questions tool 31:13 - Ads 33:33 - Tool-powered skills with Tavily and Firecrawl 36:57 - CLI vs MCP vs API hierarchy 39:30 - Make slides skill with Puppeteer 43:32 - Auto-invoking skills with hooks 46:49 - Jupyter notebooks for data trust 55:09 - The operating system file structure 1:05:58 - Outro --- 🏆 Thanks to our sponsors:
Bolt: Ship AI-powered products 10x faster - https://bolt.new/solutions/product-manager?utm_source=Promoted&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=aakash-product-growth
Amplitude: The market-leader in product analytics - https://amplitude.com/session-replay?utm_campaign=session-replay-launch-2025&utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=organic-social&utm_content=productgrowthpodcast
Pendo: The #1 software experience management platform - http://www.pendo.io/aakash
NayaOne: Airgapped cloud-agnostic sandbox - https://nayaone.com/aakash/
Product Faculty: Get $550 off their #1 AI PM Certification with my link - https://maven.com/product-faculty/ai-product-management-certification?promoCode=AAKASH550C7
--- Key Takeaways:
1. Context management is the real skill - A single web search eats 10% of your context. Run /context to see what is consuming it. System prompt and MCPs take 10-16% before you type one message.
1. Sub-agents save 20x context - Delegate research to a sub-agent. Same task costs 0.5% instead of 10%. Your main session only gets the summary.
1. Replace MCPs with CLIs - MCPs eat context by existing. CLIs have zero overhead. GitHub CLI, Vercel CLI, Google Workspace CLI are all dramatically more efficient.
1. Powerful skills need zero code - Anthropic's front-end design plugin is just a good prompt. No APIs or tooling. Just rules that tell Claude "do not look like AI."
1. Give Claude self-checking tools - The make slides skill uses Puppeteer to screenshot output, measure overflow, and fix issues before you see them.
1. Repeat prompts for better quality - A Google paper showed pasting a prompt twice helps. Tell Claude to double-check against skill instructions after the first pass.
1. Use hooks to auto-invoke skills - A user_prompt_submit hook matches your words against skill keywords instantly. Zero context cost.
1. Jupyter notebooks solve data trust - Every analysis shows exact code, inputs, and outputs. Traceable and reproducible.
1. Build an operating system - Knowledge folder for people context. Projects folder for task isolation. Tools folder for scripts. CLAUDE.md for identity.
1. The people folder compounds - Connect meeting transcription. After every meeting, update each person's dossier. Every prompt gets more specific over time. --- 👨‍💻 Where to find Carl Vellotti: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlvellotti/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/carlvellotti Newsletter: The Full-Stack PM 👨‍💻 Where to find Aakash: Twitter: https://www.x.com/aakashg0 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aakashgupta/ Newsletter: https://www.news.aakashg.com #claudecode #aipm --- 🧠 About Product Growth: The world's largest podcast focused solely on product + growth, with over 200K+ listeners. 🔔 Subscribe and turn on notifications to get more videos like this.

SPEAKERS

Aakash Gupta
host
Host and product leader who runs the Aakash Gupta channel and promotes his newsletter and product bundle.
Carl Vellotti
guest
Product-focused Claude Code educator behind CC4PMs/cc4everyone.com and the newsletter The Full-Stack PM.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Aakash Gupta, featuring Aakash Gupta and Carl Vellotti, Claude Code Secrets for PMs: The Operating System, Skills, and Data Viz explores turn Claude Code into a PM operating system with skills Claude Code still matters because it’s the most powerful “base layer” compared to UI wrappers like Cowork and autonomous runners like OpenClaw, especially when PMs must stay in the driver’s seat.

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