The way code actually becomes clay, without needing a clay-wielding robot to do things for you, is to work in a material from the Lisp family.

Lisps have been compared to clay historically; search for it.

Recently, FOSDEM 2026 talk title: https://archive.fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/HDE7JZ-lisp-i...

Not so recently, 1978 Revised Report on SCHEME: https://research.scheme.org/lambda-papers/lambda-papers-revi... ("LISP is a ball of mud" note)

Rephrased as "clay" in 1980 "Lisp Comes of Age" article for Byte Magazine: https://microship.com/lisp-comes-of-age/