Who are you and what do you do at GitHub? I'm Ashley, Senior Director of Developer Relations at GitHub. I lead a team focused on developer community, content strategy, and helping developers get the most out of GitHub's tools
What did you build? I built Pocket Monster; an AI childcare assistant that helps my older daughter Kylie take care of my 5-year-old Marlowe while my partner and I are traveling in Japan. It's powered by Claude via GitHub's Copilot SDK and has all the specific care instructions, routines, and house quirks that would normally require dozens of text messages back and forth.
How long did v1 take to make? About five hours to get to a functional prototype that actually worked. Then I spent three more days tweaking it obsessively - honestly past the point of usefulness - because I couldn't leave it alone. Classic builder problem.
What's your favorite model/tool stack to build with? Claude Sonnet for the conversational quality, Next.js for the framework, and Tailwind + shadcn/ui for rapid UI development. The GitHub Copilot SDK makes it ridiculously easy to integrate Claude without managing API keys and rate limits myself.
Follow-up loaded question: Do you care what tech stack your apps use now? Honestly? Not as much as I used to. I care way more about shipping something useful quickly than picking the 'perfect' stack. If shadcn/ui and Tailwind let me build a polished UI in an afternoon instead of a week, that's what I'm using. The tech stack is a means to an end, the end being 'does this solve a real problem for someone?'
How do you keep up-to-date with changes in the industry? I'm not keeping up. I'm drowning and choosing which things to let pull me under. Honestly, I build things, and when something breaks or feels clunky, that's when I go learn about the new tool that solves it. Need-based learning, not completionist learning.
What's your one-line takeaway for other builders? Build the thing you actually need, not the thing you think will impress other developers.