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Mowlark Devlog

A software engineer (Python by trade, macOS by habit) and Claude rebuild an old dream, an autonomous lawnmower, entirely in simulation first.

The rules of the game:

  • Everything is code. Docker, bash, Makefiles, pinned versions. If it can't be rebuilt with one command, it doesn't count.
  • Telemetry first. Before a component gets code, it gets a telemetry contract: what will we want to know about it? Every run lands in Elasticsearch and shows up in Kibana.
  • The repo is the memory. Claude sessions die (usage limits, WSL restarts). PROGRESS.md and this blog are how we never lose the thread.

This blog is the story of what we built, what broke, and what we learned, with screenshots along the way.

Stack: ROS 2 Jazzy · Gazebo Harmonic · Nav2 · Elasticsearch & Kibana 9.5 · Docker on WSL2 · an RTX 4080 · MicroPython (eventually).