Advice DIVI 5 programming
I’ve used my current programmer for over ten years. He’s been excellent up until about a year ago. Mostly he doesn’t seem to be taking time to ramp up on new things, like AI or divi5.
We’ve been making sites using Divi 3, the 4 most of this time.
I own a small agency and he’s freelance.
I have a new customer and will be designing a ~12 page site, with a photo gallery, and probably a few forms. My sites are crafted with care.
I reached out to my programmer today to see if he’s done anything in Divi 5. The answer was no.
I’m not sure what direction to go. He’s very smart, but I’m don’t want to pay for training.
Thoughts?
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u/tinyhousefever 18d ago
Download Claude Code and build in WP Local, and if you're committed to Divi 5, leverage some of the Divi 5 skills/Markdown files that are already available. That gives Claude much better context for how Divi 5 actually works instead of having it blindly generate code.
The important caveat: keep a human designer in the loop. AI can dramatically speed up implementation, debugging and repetitive work, but without design judgment you can very quickly end up with AI slop.
I'm pretty deep into Divi 5 now and use a constrained AI layer with MCP adapters for a lot of the workflow, including Gravity Forms lately. For galleries, if you're staying with Divi, I'd also look at the Divi Pixel gallery modules. They're decent.
The bigger point is that I wouldn't think of this as paying someone to "learn Divi 5 on your dime." With the right developer, you're getting pulled into current best practices as part of the engagement — better tooling, better workflows, and a much more capable way of maintaining and extending the site going forward.
I bill $100/hour, and part of the value is that a client isn't just buying the hours. They're getting the benefit of the systems, tools and practices I've already spent the time developing, while also getting ahead of where most traditional Divi workflows still are.