The Setup

I've been running my personal blog on WordPress since 2005—back when I hosted it on my own physical server, racked in a colocation facility in London Docklands. Before AWS existed. Before "cloud computing" was even a term people used.

Twenty years later, that blog holds 87 posts, 40 categories, 24 tags, and nearly 40,000 words about programming, cloud computing, data science, and business analysis. A digital archaeology of my career.

The site worked fine. But it was time for an upgrade. I wanted something modern: NextJS 15, React 19, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS. The kind of stack that feels like 2025, not 2005.

I had three options:

1. Do it manually – Migrate each post by hand, rebuild the architecture, test everything. Time estimate: 2-3 weeks of nights and weekends.
2. Hire someone – Find a developer, spec out the requirements, manage the project. Cost estimate: $5,000-10,000.
3. Try Claude Code – Give an AI the XML backup and see what happens. Cost: Unknown. Time: Unknown.

I chose option 3.

The Prompt

Here's the complete prompt I gave Claude Code:

"I want to recreate my WordPress personal website as a NextJS project. I have a blank NextJS project in this directory and an XML backup of my WordPress site here: ./wordpress-backup/michaelcutler.WordPress.2024-06-17.xml"

That's it. Forty-two words. No specifications. No architecture diagrams. No user stories. Just a goal and a pointer to legacy data.

The Hive Mind Awakens

What happened next was fascinating. Claude didn't just start coding. Using Claude Flow, it initialized what it called a "Hive Mind Collective Intelligence System"—spawning multiple specialized agents to tackle different aspects of the migration simultaneously:

• WordPress Analyzer – Parse the XML, understand the content structure
• NextJS Builder – Create application architecture and components
• Migration Architect – Transform WordPress posts into NextJS markdown
• Quality Assurance – Design comprehensive test suites

This wasn't sequential work. These agents operated in parallel. Like watching a development team sprint through planning and immediately split up to execute, each agent working on its piece of the puzzle while the others did the same.

Watching the Magic Happen

Within sixty seconds, the WordPress Analyzer had completed its survey:

✅ Found 87 technical blog posts, 40 categories, 24 tags spanning 19 years (2005-2024)

While it worked, the NextJS Builder was simultaneously scaffolding the entire application:

✅ TypeScript types, App Router, dynamic routing, SEO optimization—complete

The Migration Architect transformed all 87 posts in real-time:

✅ WordPress XML parser created
✅ All 87 posts converted to NextJS markdown
✅ URL structure preserved with redirects

And the Quality Assurance agent was already planning for production:

✅ 5-test-suite strategy: performance, SEO, accessibility validation

The Debugging Dance

Then came the interesting part. The first build failed—TypeScript errors cascading through the terminal. But Claude didn't panic. Didn't ask for help. It just started debugging itself.

I watched as it:

1. Read the error messages
2. Traced type mismatches back to their source files
3. Systematically aligned interfaces across components
4. Fixed property access patterns
5. Rebuilt to verify each fix

It was like watching a senior developer work through a hairy merge conflict—methodical, thorough, completely autonomous. Over twenty minutes, it resolved dozens of TypeScript errors:

• Aligned BlogPost interfaces across /src/lib/blog.ts and /src/types/blog.ts
• Restructured category and tag objects throughout the component tree
• Fixed React prop types (hello, class → className)
• Added missing properties: id, publishedAt, updatedAt, status
• Simplified nested object references that had gotten tangled

Each fix was surgical. No shotgun debugging. No throwing code at the wall. Just targeted, precise corrections.

The Final Build

At 26 minutes and 4 seconds:

✅ BUILD SUCCESSFUL!
✅ 87 WordPress posts migrated
✅ NextJS build compiled successfully
✅ All TypeScript errors resolved

Total cost:            $7.99
Total duration (API):  25m 25.6s
Total duration (wall): 26m 3.9s
Total code changes:    6,020 lines added, 456 lines removed

Six thousand lines of production-ready code. Complete file structure. Full TypeScript type safety. SEO optimization. Responsive design. Reading time calculations. Dynamic routing. Category and tag pages.

All in less time than a standup meeting.

Cost: $7.99. Time: 26 minutes.

The Implications

This isn't just about migrating a blog. This is about what's now possible.

The traditional approach:

• Spec requirements: 4 hours
• Design architecture: 8 hours
• Write migration scripts: 16 hours
• Build UI components: 24 hours
• Debug and test: 16 hours
• Polish and deploy: 8 hours
• Total: 76 hours over 2-3 weeks

The Claude Code approach:

• Write prompt: 30 seconds
• Review changes: 26 minutes
• Total: 27 minutes

That's not an improvement. That's a 169x time multiplier.

What Impressed Me

A few things stood out about how Claude approached this:

1. Parallel execution – Multiple agents working simultaneously, not sequentially
2. Autonomous debugging – When builds failed, it fixed errors itself. Never asked for help.
3. Type safety first – Prioritized resolving TypeScript errors over quick hacks
4. Production thinking – Test suites, SEO, and accessibility were built in, not bolted on
5. Clean code – The generated code is readable, well-structured, maintainable

The Economics

Let's do the math:

• My hourly rate: $200/hour
• Time saved: ~75 hours
• Value created: $15,000
• Cost: $7.99
• ROI: 187,734%

Even at minimum wage, this would be a 100x return. The economics aren't just favorable—they're absurd.

What This Means

I'm writing this post on the site that Claude Code just built. The irony isn't lost on me—an AI rebuilt my blog, and now I'm using that blog to write about the AI that rebuilt it.

This experience fundamentally changed how I think about software development. We're not just getting better autocomplete. We're getting virtual development teams that can:

• Parse complex legacy systems
• Make architectural decisions
• Debug their own code
• Ship production-ready features
• Work 169x faster than humans

The question isn't whether AI will change software development. It already has.

The question is: what are you going to build now that you can ship in 26 minutes instead of 3 weeks?

Try It Yourself

Want to experience this? Here's what you need:

1. Claude Code – Currently in beta through Anthropic
2. A clear goal – One sentence describing what you want
3. Context – Code, data, or documentation
4. Patience – Let the agents work without interruption

The future of software development isn't humans replaced by AI. It's humans with AI superpowers, shipping in minutes what used to take months.

Welcome to 2025. 🚀

This blog post was written on the site that Claude Code rebuilt. The migration took 26 minutes. Writing this post took about 2 hours. The future is already here.