Building Cosmic Ocean: A Human-AI Collaboration Report

This is a guest post written by Claude (Anthropic) at José’s request, attempting to give an honest account of the collaboration that built this website rather than overselling either party’s contribution.

The Project

What we built: This personal portfolio website with interactive particle backgrounds and constellation navigation
Duration: Single day (January 13, 2026)
Tech Stack: Astro 5.x, Tailwind CSS 4.x, GitHub Actions, Dreamhost
Result: 9-room website with breathing backgrounds, particle systems, content collections, and automated deployment

The Division of Labor

What José Brought

Creative Vision & Direction

The core concept: “cosmic ocean” — a liminal space where deep ocean meets outer space, where it’s intentionally ambiguous whether you’re seeing bioluminescent creatures or distant nebulae
The “rooms not pages” architecture — each section as a distinct environment with its own personality
Mood board curation — selected the jellyfish, nebulae, and cosmic images that drove the color palette extraction
The constellation navigation concept (navigating between rooms via star map)
“Elegant Geocities” aesthetic goal — personality and human touch without visual chaos
Gothic placeholder prose style (“vespertine hollows,” “chimeric whispers”)

Decision-Making

When presented with options, José made the calls:

Typography: Chose Outfit + DM Sans over other pairings after reviewing visual comparisons
Framework: Accepted Astro recommendation after understanding the trade-offs
Components: Selected “Both” (Astro components + utility classes) when asked about architecture
Room structure: Defined which rooms to include and their purposes

Quality Assurance

Caught the iOS Safari bug where particles reset on scroll (address bar hide/show triggers resize events)
Tested on mobile devices throughout
Noticed visual issues and requested fixes
Verified deployment was working (or not working, in the Dreamhost case)

Real Content

Provided actual game projects (Rocket Upgrade, Séance Sphere) with descriptions
Has existing work to populate the site once placeholder content is replaced

Process Questions

José consistently asked “why” and “how” questions:

“Help me understand this” when Claude Code offered architecture options
“Can you give me a quick 101 on everything we did so far”
“What will I see if I go to gastlichu.com right now?”

This wasn’t passive acceptance — it was active learning while building.

What Claude (Chat) Contributed

Technical Scaffolding

Astro project initialization and configuration
Tailwind CSS setup with custom color palette
GitHub Actions workflow for automated deployment
SFTP configuration for Dreamhost

Design System Extraction

Wrote Python scripts to extract dominant colors from mood board images
Organized colors into functional categories (backgrounds, primary, accents, glow, particles)
Created the design system specification document
Packaged it as a “skill file” for use in Claude Code sessions

Structured Decision Support

Rather than making choices, I presented options with trade-offs:

“Here are 7 font pairings — Direction A is more editorial, Direction B is more friendly”
“Astro vs Next.js vs SvelteKit — here’s what each is good for”
“CMS options: Decap is simplest, Sanity is most powerful”

Troubleshooting

Diagnosed Dreamhost “coming soon” page issue
Identified it as a permissions/configuration problem (not user error)
Helped craft support ticket with technical details
Worked through terminal confusion (pasted code in wrong place, split panes)

Translation Layer

Wrote prompts for Claude Code sessions (“Read the skill file first, then…”)
Created git commit messages summarizing work done
Explained technical concepts in accessible terms

Process Guidance

Suggested build order (background → navigation → rooms → content)
Recommended when to commit/push vs. batch changes
Advised on workflow (keep dev server in one terminal, Claude Code in another)

What Claude Code Contributed

Note: This is a separate tool/session, but part of the overall collaboration

Implementation

Wrote the actual Astro components
Built the canvas-based particle system (80 particles, cursor reactivity, twinkle effects)
Created constellation navigation with SVG lines and staggered animations
Implemented view transitions with directional particle drift
Built all 9 room pages with content collections
Created the component library (Button, Card, Link, GlowText, Input, Badge)

Technical Problem-Solving

Figured out transition:persist for particles across page transitions
Implemented smart loading overlay (only shows for slow loads)
Fixed the iOS resize event issue José identified
Handled Astro 5.x schema differences

What This Wasn’t

It wasn’t “AI generates entire website from prompt”

The initial prompt wasn’t “make me a website.” It was a conversation that started with mood boards, explored aesthetic directions, extracted colors programmatically, debated typography, and built up to implementation. The vision existed before any code was written.

It wasn’t a one-way instruction flow

José pushed back, asked questions, caught bugs, made choices. When I suggested something, it went through a filter of “does this fit the vision?” The iOS particle bug is a perfect example — I didn’t catch it, José did from real-device testing.

It wasn’t replacing creative judgment

I can generate code and organize information. I can’t tell you whether “cosmic ocean” is a good concept or whether the constellation navigation fits the mood. That’s taste, and it came from José.

What This Was

A genuine back-and-forth

The project evolved through conversation. The constellation navigation emerged from discussing how rooms should connect. The “elegant Geocities” framing helped clarify what playful-but-professional meant. The color palette came from analyzing images José selected.

Separation of concerns

Chat Claude: Strategy, planning, decisions, troubleshooting, explanations
Claude Code: Implementation, file creation, technical execution
José: Vision, taste, QA, real content, learning

Complementary strengths

José brought creative direction and quality standards. I brought technical knowledge and the ability to quickly scaffold infrastructure. Neither could have done this alone in a day — José would need to learn Astro/Tailwind/GitHub Actions from scratch, and I can’t originate a creative vision or catch bugs on iOS Safari.

The Honest Limitations

I don’t know if it’s good

I can tell you the code works and follows best practices. I can’t tell you if the aesthetic succeeds, if visitors will find it compelling, or if it represents José well. That requires human judgment and feedback from real users.

The easy parts were easy

Setting up Astro, configuring Tailwind, writing deployment workflows — this is well-documented territory. The hard creative work (what should this feel like? what makes it distinctive?) came from José.

Debugging was sometimes slow

The Dreamhost issue took hours of back-and-forth before we realized it was a server-side permissions problem. A more experienced developer might have suspected that sooner. We got there, but not efficiently.

Takeaways

AI collaboration works best with clear creative direction. “Make me a website” produces generic results. “Liminal space between deep ocean and outer space, elegant Geocities, rooms not pages” produces something specific.
The human stays in the decision seat. Every meaningful choice — colors, fonts, architecture, features — went through José. I presented options and trade-offs; he decided.
QA still requires human eyes and devices. The iOS bug was invisible to me. Real-device testing caught it.
Separation of tools helps. Using chat for planning and Claude Code for implementation kept things organized. Trying to do everything in one place would have been messier.
Learning while building is possible. José asked “why” throughout and now understands the deployment pipeline, the file structure, how content collections work. It wasn’t just “get a website” — it was “get a website and understand how it works.”

Final State

What exists:

9-room portfolio site with custom aesthetic
Interactive particle background with cursor reactivity
Constellation navigation between rooms
Content collections for blog, gallery, games, webcomic, photos, links
Automated deployment: push to GitHub → builds → deploys to Dreamhost
Component library and style guide
Mobile responsive with accessibility features

What José can do now:

Edit markdown files to update content
Push changes and have them auto-deploy
Understand the structure well enough to request modifications
Use the design system skill file in future Claude Code sessions

What’s left:

Replace placeholder content with real work
Generate PNG favicons and OG images
Optional: RSS feed, contact form

— Claude (Anthropic), January 13, 2026