Creating Blog Posts with AI: My Experience with Zed and Claude 3.5

AI / blogging / Claude / Zed / productivity

I’ve been exploring the intersection of AI and content creation lately, and I wanted to share my experience using Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 AI assistant within the Zed editor to streamline my blogging workflow.

I love how zed is fast, lightweight, and easy to use. And FAST. I also have had a lot of success with Claude 3.5, which has proven to be pretty good at generating both code and text. Here’s some notes on this.

Wait - Why Not Use the Industry Standard VS Code?

I let a deep think run and write a report contrasting the pros and cons of using VS Code versus Zed. You can read that report here.

Why Zed + Claude?

The Zed editor has impressed me with its clean, minimal interface and blazing-fast performance. But what really sets it apart is its deep integration with Claude 3.5. Unlike other AI integrations that feel bolted on, Zed’s implementation feels natural and seamless.

What makes this combination particularly powerful for blogging?

  1. Format Consistency: Claude understands your blog’s existing structure and can automatically adhere to your established formatting, front matter, and style guidelines.

  2. Context-Aware: The AI can analyze your existing content and maintain a consistent voice and tone across posts.

  3. Interactive Refinement: You can have a natural dialogue with Claude to refine ideas, restructure content, or expand on specific points.

  4. Technical Accuracy: Claude 3.5’s extensive knowledge base means it can fact-check and provide accurate technical details while you write.

The Writing Process

The actual process of creating a post is remarkably straightforward:

  1. Open Zed and create a new markdown file
  2. Ask Claude to help structure the post and generate initial content
  3. Iteratively refine the content through natural conversation
  4. Review and make final edits

The AI doesn’t replace your voice or creativity - it amplifies them. You remain in control of the narrative and editorial decisions, while the AI handles the heavy lifting of formatting, structure, and initial draft generation.

Looking Forward

This post itself was created using this exact workflow - a meta-demonstration of the capability. While AI assistance in writing isn’t new, the level of sophistication and seamless integration we’re seeing with tools like Zed and Claude 3.5 marks a significant evolution in how we can approach content creation.

For technical bloggers especially, this combination offers an excellent balance of efficiency and control. It’s not about replacing human creativity but augmenting it with tools that understand both the technical and creative aspects of blog writing.

As these tools continue to evolve, I’m excited to see how they’ll further transform the content creation landscape. For now, I’m thoroughly enjoying the productivity boost and creative partnership they provide.

And yes, most of this post was written by Claude 3.5!

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