Vendor or secondhand (grade C: vendor or secondhand)The author's own figures from the project's README, not a measured study.

Build Your Own Support Copilot in Claude Code in an Hour

An open-source Claude Code skill helps you build a basic version of support automation for your own stack in 30 to 60 minutes, and its author says the version built for Lex handles about 80% of support tasks with yes/no approvals.

Who this is about: Software company founder (built first for Lex)

Claude Codeclaude-cs skill (GitHub)Your helpdesk (Zendesk, Help Scout or Intercom)StripeStartups Shopify & ecommerce Agencies Solo foundersApprove-to-send

Get the prompt

SupportAdded Oct 15, 2026Source: github.com

What it takes

Cost: Free planClaude: Free plan. Pro is $20 a month billed monthly ($17 a month billed yearly), and Max starts at $100 a month. Team seats are $25 a month billed monthly.Price checked Oct 24, 2026 on claude.com. Prices change; check before you buy.
Setup time: Under an hourOur estimate from the source, for one business.
Skill needed: Some tech skillsComfortable installing an app, pasting an API key or running a command.

Explain it simply

Claude Code is an AI that can write small programs for you. A free guide walks you through connecting it to your helpdesk and billing tools, then building reply templates for common customer questions. In about an hour you get a helper that drafts answers from your real systems instead of guessing.

New to AI? See how AI works

What was done

Nathan Baschez released a "meta-skill" that walks you through building support automation for your own company. It asks about your stack, plans the scripts you need, writes TypeScript scripts for your APIs, and creates reply templates for your common cases.

Day to day, you run one command. It lists all open tickets, ranks them by urgency, pulls customer context from support, billing and your database, drafts a reply, and waits for your approval before it sends or takes an action such as a refund.

How it went

The Lex build: 15 scripts across Help Scout, Stripe and PostgreSQL, 6 reply templates, and about 80% of support tasks handled with yes/no approvals.

Setup time is listed as 30 to 60 minutes for a basic version. Both figures are the author's own claims in the README, not a measured study.
Limitation: you need API access to your tools and basic comfort with a command line. Safety is built in: it requires approval before sending anything and uses read-only database access.

Prompt

PromptAdapted from the source

INSTALL (from the source README)
claude plugin marketplace add nbashaw/claude-cs
claude plugin install customer-support-builder

RUN (inside your company repo)
claude
/customer-support-builder

FIRST-SESSION BRIEF (adapted, ours)
Our helpdesk is [Zendesk/Help Scout/...], billing is [Stripe/...],
database is [Postgres/...] (read-only). Our 5 most common tickets
are: [list]. Build scripts and reply templates for those first.
Never send a reply or issue a refund without my explicit "yes."

Install commands from the project's README. The first-session brief is ours.

Business fit

Who this helps, and how:

Startup founders: clear the support queue yourself with yes/no approvals instead of hiring early.
Startups
E-commerce sellers on Shopify or with subscriptions: connect your helpdesk and payment platform to speed up refunds and order questions.
Shopify & ecommerce
Agencies and freelancers: build a version for each client's stack as a paid setup project.
Agencies
Independent consultants: triage client emails and billing questions with drafts waiting for your approval.
Agencies
Medical and health practice owners: use it for scheduling and billing questions only, with read-only access and staff approving every reply.
Local & service

Similar tools

Other tools for this job, and how they differ. Chosen by our editors, never paid for.

Intercom Fin
Packaged AI support agent if you want a product instead of building scripts.
Ada
Automation-focused customer service AI for larger support volumes.
Zendesk AI
Native AI assist and bots if your helpdesk is already Zendesk.

“Vendor or secondhand” (grade C) means: A tool maker's case study, a promotional demo, or someone else's write-up. How we grade. Spotted a mistake? Suggest a correction.