A build catalog is one list of everything you’ve made, stored somewhere your AI assistant can read before it helps you make something new. Mine holds 359 rows across apps, workflows, tools and databases. It exists because I’d built more than I could name off the top of my head, and because I’m the kind of person who thinks she never gets anything done. The list disagrees with me, in writing.
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The week I was sure I’d done nothing
I’ll finish a week convinced I have nothing to show for it. It isn’t modesty. It’s how my head keeps score, where whatever I finished stops counting the moment it’s done.
Then I open the catalog and there are 359 rows in it. Twenty-seven web apps. A hundred and thirty-three workflows. I scroll and land on things I have no memory of making, and the reaction is never pride. It’s surprise. Oh. I forgot about that one.
That gap, between what I’ve built and what I believe I’ve built, is the actual problem, and it costs me twice. I don’t get credit for the work, even from myself. And I can’t reach for something I’ve forgotten I own, which leaves me one enthusiastic conversation away from building it a second time.
What does a build catalog do?
A build catalog turns everything you’ve made into rows you can read, filter and hand to an assistant. One row per thing, with what it is, what it does, where it lives and whether it’s still running.
Mine sits in Airtable and currently holds:
| Type | Count |
|---|---|
| n8n workflows | 133 |
| Content tools | 37 |
| Web apps | 27 |
| Databases | 9 |
| Products for sale | 6 |
| Blog engines | 4 |
It does three jobs for me, in order of how much I use them.
It answers “have I made this already,” which is the whole reason it exists. It renders a public page, so the same rows I keep for myself double as something I can show people. And it gives me the count, which is super useful on the weeks when I’m sure I’ve done nothing.
Who is a build catalog for?
You need one the moment you can’t list what you’ve built from memory. Not at a project count, at that moment. Try it right now, out loud, and see where you stall.
That threshold arrives earlier than people expect. I hit it somewhere in the twenties, long before 359, back when I’d have sworn I could still list the lot from memory.
You should build one if you ship small things often, if you work across more than one kind of project, or if you’ve ever opened a folder and found something you forgot writing. You especially need one if you build with an AI assistant, because the speed is the problem. Making things got cheap. Remembering them didn’t.
Skip it if you have one main project and you know it cold. A catalog of four things is a chore with no payoff. Skip it too if your work is one long continuous codebase rather than a pile of separate builds, because git history already does this job for you.
What do you need to build a build catalog?
Four things.
Somewhere to put rows. Airtable, and 1,000 records is plenty to start. A Google Sheet works exactly as well for the first version. Don’t overthink this part, it’s a list.
An AI assistant with file access. I use Claude Code because it reads my machine directly, so it can walk my folders and fill the catalog in rather than making me type 359 rows by hand. Paid. Any assistant with local file access works the same way.
A place your assistant remembers instructions. For Claude Code that’s a skill or a project memory file. If you’re new to those, I wrote about what a Claude Code skill actually is and about customizing them already.
Fifteen minutes. Not fifteen minutes of typing. Fifteen minutes of answering questions about where your stuff lives while something else does the walking.
How does a build catalog work?
It works in two steps, and the order matters, because step one is the part that pays you immediately.
Step one is the inventory. You point your assistant at the places your work lives. For me that was a folder of web apps, a folder of single-file tools, my n8n instance, and my Airtable bases. It walks each one and writes a row per thing it finds: name, type, what it does, where it lives, whether it’s still live.
This step is where the “oh, I forgot about that one” happens, and it kept happening. It’s the reason I recommend doing the inventory before you decide whether you want the rest. You get the payoff before you commit.
Step two is the guard. You write one instruction into your assistant’s memory: before you help me build anything, read the catalog and tell me if I already own it.
Most of the time step two does nothing, which is what you want. Then every so often I bring an idea and get told, more or less, hello, you already made that.
Two real ones from the last few weeks. I looked at a seller-stack product and started sizing up a clone. Turned out I already ran five of its six parts across a storefront, a newsletter system, three blogs, an affiliate platform and my graphics setup. The only genuinely new piece was physical sticker fulfillment, and I already sell print-on-demand three other ways. Nothing there was a gap.
The second one is my favorite, because it didn’t end in a no. Another product got skipped as a clone, but one piece of it was genuinely useful, so it became a transcript fallback bolted onto a workflow I already ran. Shipped September 3 as version 2.1. The idea survived, it just stopped being a whole new tool. That happens a lot once something can see the list.
Get the generator
Answer four questions about where your own work actually lives, and this writes you the two files. The first is the prompt that goes and inventories what you own. The second is the guard that reads the result before your assistant helps you build anything new.
Run step one on its own and read the list it hands back. Step two only helps once the catalog exists, because a guard pointed at an empty list does nothing.
The last rule in the guard is the one to keep. Adding the row has to be the final step of every build. A catalog that doesn’t get a new row when you ship goes stale, and a stale catalog is worse than none, because you’ll trust it.
What it doesn’t do
It doesn’t stay true on its own, and I have the receipts on this one.
I had three jobs set up to keep my catalog honest. One scanned my published posts and linked them to the builds they were about. One checked my apps for cross-promotion. One filled in missing rows. All three ran monthly, all three were switched on, and all three had never run. Not once. The oldest had been dead since July.
At first I blamed one missing value in the schedule. That turned out to be wrong, and I still don’t know what stopped them. All three showed up as active in the interface the entire time.
Nothing told me. That’s the part to copy. I had error handling wired up correctly, and error handling catches a job that fails. It has nothing to say about a job that never starts. There was no failure, because there was no run.
I found it the same day I wrote this post, by going looking for something else. Fixed it, ran the first job by hand, and it immediately turned up 14 missing links going back to May, plus four tools I’d built that were never in the catalog at all.
So the catalog built to fix “I can’t see what I own” had a blind spot in the same shape. Two lessons, and the second one is the sharper one. Switched on is not the same as running. And the thing you build to catch problems needs something else watching whether it’s awake.
Frequently asked questions
What is a build catalog?
A build catalog is a single list of everything you have built, with one row per thing, stored where your AI assistant can read it. It records what each thing is, what it does, where it lives and whether it still runs. The point is to answer “have I made this already” before you make it again.
How long does it take to set up?
About fifteen minutes of your attention, most of which is answering questions about where your projects live. The assistant does the walking and writing. Mine reached 359 rows without me typing them, though it has grown since through normal use.
Do I need Airtable for this?
No. A Google Sheet holds a build catalog perfectly well and costs nothing. I use Airtable because mine also renders a public page, so the same rows work as a portfolio. Start with a sheet and move later if you want the page.
How is this different from a to-do list?
A to-do list holds what you plan to do and gets emptied. A build catalog holds what you have already finished and never gets emptied. They answer opposite questions, and the catalog is the one that stops you repeating yourself.
What if my assistant ignores the catalog?
Then the instruction is buried too deep or written too politely. Put it where your assistant reads on every session, not in a file it only opens when asked, and phrase it as a step it must take rather than a thing it should consider.
Does the catalog need maintaining?
Yes, and this is where mine broke. Adding the new row has to be the last step of every build, not a separate chore. Anything automatic you set up to fill gaps needs checking, because a scheduled job that silently never runs looks exactly like one with nothing to do.
Try it yourself
Start with the inventory and stop there. Point an assistant at wherever your projects live, let it write one row per thing, and read the list. If you find something you forgot building, you needed the catalog, and the guard is worth adding. If the list matches what was already in your head, you don’t need any of this yet, and you can come back when it doesn’t.
The same rows also run a public page on my site, which is how the list I keep for myself became the thing I send people when they ask what I do. One list, two jobs, and I only maintain it once.
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Related reading
- What is a Claude Code skill?
- How I customize Claude Code skills
- My Claude Code setup
- The meal planner app I built to save recipes from websites
Subscribe if you haven’t already, and go count what you’ve built. I’d bet the number is higher than the one in your head.
