Mace Innovations
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Deep Dive6 min read
Shawn Fultz
Shawn Fultz
Founder, Mace Innovations
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How We Build Software 10x More Efficiently Using AI Development Tools

After two years of using AI coding assistants like Claude Code and agentic development workflows to build software for our clients, we've learned how to make these tools dramatically more cost-effective—without sacrificing quality.

The Problem With AI-Assisted Development

AI coding tools like Claude Code, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot have transformed how software gets built. But here's what most teams discover: the API costs can spiral out of control fast.

Every time you ask the AI to help with a task, it needs context—your codebase, your requirements, your conventions. Most setups send this context fresh with every single request. That's expensive.

We figured out how to fix that.

Our Approach: Context Architecture

We've spent two years refining how we structure our AI development workflows. The key insight: context should be loaded once and reused across hundreds of operations.

When we're building software for a client, we structure our prompts, system instructions, and project context in a way that maximizes cache hits. The AI provider (Anthropic, in our case) caches repeated content automatically—but only if you structure things correctly.

THE DIFFERENCE
❌ Typical AI Dev Setup
Send full context → Get response
Send full context → Get response
Send full context → Get response
...pay full price every time
✓ Our Setup
Send context once → Cached
Reuse from cache → Reuse
Reuse from cache → Reuse
...92% served from cache

Real Numbers From Our Development Work

Over the past year, we've processed over 23 billion tokens through Claude while building software for our clients. To put that in perspective: that's roughly equivalent to reading and writing 17 million pages of code and documentation.

That's not a typo. Billions with a B. Code generation, refactoring, debugging, documentation, code review—all at a scale that would be impossible without optimized workflows.

92.4%
Served from cache
6.7%
New context sent

Translation: For every 100 AI coding operations, only 7 required sending fresh context. The other 93 reused cached context—at a fraction of the cost.

What This Means For Your Project

When we build software for clients, we're not just writing code—we're doing it with a development process that's been optimized over two years.

This efficiency translates directly to your project:

  • Faster delivery. We can iterate more because each iteration costs less.
  • Higher quality. We can afford to have AI review and refine code multiple times.
  • Better value. Our development costs are lower, which means better pricing for you.
  • Proven process. 23 billion tokens of production experience—we know what works.

Two Years of Refinement

We didn't stumble into this. It took two years of building real software for real clients, constantly measuring and optimizing our AI development workflows.

The patterns we've developed—how we structure prompts, organize project context, design system instructions—these aren't things you can copy from a tutorial. They're the result of deep, hands-on experience.

This is what we bring to every project. Not just developers who use AI tools—developers who've mastered them.

What You Get Working With Us

Optimized AI development. We've refined our process over 23 billion tokens of real work.
Production-grade output. AI-assisted doesn't mean AI-generated. We deliver real solutions.
Efficient delivery. Our optimized workflows mean faster turnaround and better value.
No vibe coding. We deliver solutions that work, not experiments that might.

Ready to Build Something?

If you need custom software built by a team that's mastered AI-assisted development, let's talk. We've spent two years perfecting this. We'd love to put that experience to work on your project.

Let's Build Your Next Project

Custom software development with AI-optimized efficiency built into our process.

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