Construction: RFI And Submittal Review with Claude Code: Build vs Buy Decision
A production playbook for RFI and submittal review in construction operations using Claude Code: build vs buy decision, run-scoped inputs, logs, typed results, and artifacts.
Audience: Construction project teams
The problem
Construction project teams need RFI and submittal review to run repeatedly against RFIs, submittals, drawings, specs, change orders, and project notes. In construction operations, the pain is not one good answer; it is repeatability, auditability, exception handling, and evidence that survives handoff.
Implementation path
Compare the work required to operate RFI and submittal review: sandbox lifecycle, provider credentials, input injection, logs, artifact delivery, retries, and result validation.
Tradeoffs and failure modes
Building gives total control; buying the runtime compresses the path to a customer-facing workflow. For RFI and submittal review, the practical test is whether a second run can be debugged, retried, and consumed by a product without reading the raw agent transcript.
Decision table
Build internally if you need bespoke infrastructure primitives.
Use Argo if you need RFI and submittal review as a product workflow: inputs, Claude Code, logs, result JSON, and artifacts.
Use both if a specialized sandbox must sit behind a stable run contract.
Run this on Argo