I wanted to experiment building a full-stack web framework that was small enough for the AI to read end-to-end without needing an MCP. What if the source code, both my code and the framework’s code (in node_modules), was right there, uncompiled, browseable, readable? What if the browser console showed the exact same code the AI wrote, with no transpiler in between?

That’s the idea I built webjs around. And it’s live now at https://webjs.dev.

webjs is built on web standards

The first decision was this. Don’t write a new component model. Just use web components. They’re a browser standard, they work everywhere, they have proper shadow DOM, slots, custom events, that works. So webjs components are real web components. Light DOM by default, so your Tailwind classes and global CSS just work. And you can flip one flag, static shadow = true, to opt into shadow DOM with proper SSR via Declarative Shadow DOM.

Because we don’t have to write a component engine from scratch, the framework code is tiny. Next.js is massive, thousands of files, millions of lines. webjs is maybe 5% of that, because 95% of the work is already done by the browser itself. That’s the superpower of web standards. You get power without size.

I didn’t want to reinvent everything either. So webjs plugs in the tools that already have amazing DX:

• Prisma ORM for the database. Type-safe schema, migrations, prisma generate, all the stuff that already works
• Tailwind CSS for styling, via the CLI. No browser runtime, just a small generated stylesheet
• esbuild for stripping TypeScript types for the browser in dev, about a millisecond per file
• superjson on the wire so server actions round-trip Date, Map, Set, BigInt as real types

The scaffold ships with all of this wired up. You run webjs create my-app, and you have auth, a Prisma database, Tailwind, tests, AGENTS.md, the whole thing. No "pick your ORM" decision fatigue. Sensible defaults out of the box.

File-tree routing, just like NextJs

The other thing I didn’t want to reinvent was routing. NextJs App Router is genuinely great. File-based, easy to reason about, and everyone already knows it. So webjs has full parity with the conventions people already use: page.ts, layout.ts, route.ts, error.ts, loading.ts, middleware.ts, [param] folders, (group) folders, _private folders, metadata routes. If you've used Next.js, you already know webjs.

Why AI agents love it

This is the fun part. There are five reasons AI agents write production-quality code in webjs:

1. AGENTS.md is bundled in every scaffold. It includes pre-defined guardrails so you don’t have to worry about instructing the agents about git branching rules, commit patterns, etc. It also tells the agent where it can find the framework code itself. Any AI agent reads it first and knows exactly how to build.
2. CONVENTIONS.md is also bundled in every scaffold. The framework defines conventions for AI agents about how the code needs to be structured and use the default tools opinionated by the framework. Though, you’re free to change any convention or swap the defaults.
3. The framework code is small and readable. When Claude or Cursor needs to understand how something works inside the framework, it can just open node_modules/@webjskit/core and read the actual source. No minified bundle, no transpiled soup, just plain JavaScript.
4. No build step. webjs serves .ts files directly to the browser. Node 22 strips types at runtime on the server. The dev server strips types for the browser via esbuild, cached by mtime. When an AI agent wants to debug something, it can open the browser console and see the exact code it wrote. Same file, same line numbers. No sourcemap gymnastics.
5. End-to-end TypeScript. Import a .server.ts function (Server Actions) from a client component and TypeScript sees the real signature. You get autocomplete, type errors, refactors, everything, across the server-client boundary. AI agents write fewer bugs because the types catch them first.

Fun fact: The framework includes custom hooks for Claude Code and other AI editors or CLI tools to enforce guardrails, ensuring agents can’t bypass them since they sometimes overlook the instructions in AGENTS.md. It also includes a TypeScript plugin providing autocomplete and code intelligence for Neovim, VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, and Google Antigravity.

Put these together and you get an agent that can read your whole stack end-to-end, write code with full context, and ship production features without guessing and without requiring an MCP!

The journey

Building it has been fun! Built it in under a week, thanks to AI. 632 unit tests, 96% code coverage. Rewrote the renderer three times to get light-DOM and shadow-DOM both working with SSR and hydration. Built a proper client-side router with View Transitions. Published four packages to npm. And finally shipped a working blog example that showcases a few features of the framework, so you can see it in action, not just read about it.

Try it

# install once
npm i -g @webjskit/cli

# scaffold a new app
webjs create my-app
cd my-app && npm install && npm run dev
# → http://localhost:3000

# or backend-only API
webjs create my-api --template api

# or SaaS starter (auth + dashboard + Prisma)
webjs create my-app --template saas

You get a full-stack app with auth, a dashboard, tests, Tailwind, AGENTS.md, and everything AI agents need to start shipping from minute one.

Give it a try. I’d love to know what you think. Feel free to contribute, and a star on GitHub is more than welcome : )

Links

• https://webjs.dev
• https://github.com/vivek7405/webjs
• https://www.npmjs.com/package/@webjskit/cli

Introduction

Hello world! I’m more than excited to share my journey building Recroo AI, an Artificial Intelligence interview app I bootstrapped as a full-stack developer. It all started with a basic idea: to upgrade the hiring process with AI technology. Setting foot on the road with Next.js and OpenAI’s API was challenging but fundamentally influential, accompanied by constant learning.

Recroo AI was born from a deep understanding of prevalent inefficiencies and biases in the process of recruitment. Companies spent hundreds of hours scheduling interviews, conducting them, and following through with candidates — with at times no result, as the candidates remained in inconsistency and delays. I wanted to develop an AI-boosted solution that achieved end-to-end efficiency in the process and was fair and effective for all the stakeholders.

Setting Up

With that, I started the venture and became practical with the stack, being a solo developer. I went with Next.js for its versatility, high performance, and great out-of-the-box integration of React and server-side rendering. That would be the right choice for building a scalable and robust web app.

The end result is here: recrooai.com

OpenAI Utilization

I used the root technology for building Recroo AI as another AI, for which I leveraged the OpenAI API. The API utilizes this high natural language processing to create intelligent questions, analyze candidate answers, and deliver live feedback. This one API is making it possible for dynamic interaction and realization of objective rating of candidates by the interviewer.

Building the Key Features

1. No Interview Scheduling: I set up a process where the candidate could receive a simple link and appear for the interview at their convenience without ever needing to go through the scheduling process, saving time for the recruiter as well as for the candidate.
2. AI-Powered Candidate Screening: I developed the candidate screening process through the use of OpenAI algorithms to come up with qualified candidates, reducing the time taken by recruiters during sourcing and screening.
3. Interactive AI Interviews: Conduct live video interviews with AI-powered questions to ensure equity in recruitment.
4. Real-time Feedback and Scoring: The feedback and scoring are in real time, and the AI offers objective performance scores with detailed reports to highlight the strengths of the candidates and areas of improvement.

Challenges I Overcame

It was a challenge to have to develop Recroo AI all by myself. The main challenge was to maintain the accuracy of the AI and ensure it is fair. I worked so many hours fine-tuning the models and testing a lot on different scenarios to make it reliable.

Another challenge was that I did everything in the development alone: from frontend design, backend integration, then to user experience. There were tough days, and certainly that’s what kept me going: the passion for the project, and it was my personal commitment to succeed.

Launch and Feedback

After months of hard work put in, Recroo AI was ready to launch. The response was terrific. Recruiters appreciated the productivity and objectivity it brought to their hiring process, while candidates enjoyed a fairer interview experience.

Building Recroo AI has been a fantastic journey. I look forward to extending this app further by adding more AI features, improving the user interaction, and integrating with other recruitment tools in the future.

Conclusion

Bootstrapping Recroo AI as a solo full-stack developer has been a very satisfying — if not a little stressful — experience. This journey will further help me realize the importance of the absolute value of persistence, the proper use of tools, and how innovative technology can really stand as a solution for some of the most common problems found in the real world. I am proud of my achievements and eager to continue improving the recruitment landscape with Recroo AI.

Thank you for reading this story; I hope it sets an example for other developers and entrepreneurs to go all out until an idea manifests. Reach out if you have any questions or need more information on Recroo AI. Let’s revolutionize hiring!

Feel free to follow my journey on Twitter.

The fact that this story is in itself a tribute — one can make a difference with a vision, the right tools, and a lot of will — warrants great applause to building a better future one innovation at a time.

Being a freelancer has many Pros and cons. I have been into freelancing since the last 4 years now and have worked a lot on client projects.

Working for clients had been fairly simple in terms of earning. I utilised my coding and communication skills to make sure I make quality delivery and keep my clients happy. At the end, I was paid for the hours I worked. Simple, isn’t it?

But I was always curious, while development costs are too high, how are my clients able to make up and earn from the products we developed for them? I wanted to be in their shoe and explore what the process of building a product from scratch feel like.

And here I am having built a full-fledged product having not many but a few paying customers and a lot of customers on the Free Plan — https://hire.win

I used to take a lot of interviews and interact with recruiting managers and I always wanted a simple tool to make the interviewing process simpler. So, I decided to build it myself and release it to the world!

Guess what, I listed the product on Product Hunt and it was ranked #4 Product of the day out of around 100 products launched on the same day! As they say, hard work does pay off some day or the other. I was happy, the product was welcomed well by the audience!

In simpler terms, hire.win is an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) which helps list job posts, provides an instant careers page, lets candidates apply to the job, and let interviewers and hiring managers handle the rest of the process from scheduling interviews to interviewing to submitting score cards.

Firstly, I learnt a lot of new terms like Product-Market Fit, Go to Market (GTM), and a lot more as I started to build Hire.win 😀

But, what I truly learnt from my product building experience was — making a decision. Whether to build a feature at this stage or to skip it? How urgent is this feature and what would be the impact on customers? There were multiple questions that I had to ask myself and then make a decision. Frankly, making the decision was harder then building the feature itself!

Deciding the monetisation strategy and to work on the subscription models was even more difficult. Designing the landing page of the product seemed like solving a math puzzle! Literally, all these things are more difficult than building the product itself!

Once I went through all the processes, building from scratch to launching the product, I had a lot of learnings to take from my product building journey!

Lastly, do check the product at https://hire.win and let me know your suggestions in the comments below. Also, if you are in need of any app to use in your day-to-day life and can’t find it already on the web or app store, do let me know and I’ll see if I can spend some time and launch a free version.

Thanks for reading!

-Vivek

It sounds fancy when someone tells you they are into freelancing! Don’t underestimate a freelancer, ‘coz it requires a tremendous amount of motivation and patience to keep the show going. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea. You need to deal with furious clients, satisfy the clients by providing some “extra” perks which you’re not paid for. There’s always insecurity about the client reviews when you’re dealing with a new client! And then, the biggest challenge is when you are out of projects and searching for a new one. That’s the toughest part and if you lose your patience, it may lead to demotivation and sometimes depression in the worst case! Every freelancer has to deal with these situations and only those shine who really can tackle all these hurdles.

For the ones who are frustrated and planning to quit freelancing even though it earns you good amount of money, here are some things to try out and stay inspired so that you can keep doing great!

Go on a vacation once in a while

It’s very important to take a break so that when you are back to work, you are full of energy with all the enthusiasm to kickstart again and unleash your full potential. You’ll feel the change and will surely reflect in your work!

Work on a personal project with a new technology you’re willing to learn

Keeping yourself updated with the latest technology trends is a key factor in being a successful freelancer. It’s always great to work on a personal project with any of the latest technologies that you want to learn. You may plan out the project so that it may turn out to be a profit-earning product in the long term if luck favors! Doing this will surely keep you motivated as you’ll keep yourself busy with learning new things and will feel a vibe of confidence as you progress with the project. Make sure you keep the doors open to monetize your project at a later stage so that all your work doesn’t go in vain. You may also include your work in your portfolio which you can use while sending job proposals.

Spend time with family

Work-life balance is really important and we often don’t balance it the right way. While you’re seeking a new project to work on, you can utilize the time wisely with your family. Watch a movie together with your family, go on a dinner date with your spouse, have fun with your kids, go on a long drive to places you’ve been planning to visit! There are merely endless things you can do and enjoy family time.

Enrich the presentation of your project portfolio

A good project portfolio is extremely important to quickly generate leads and get a new project faster. Every project that you work for has to be added to the portfolio which you need to present beautifully to potential clients to win more leads. While you’re looking for new opportunities, you can use the spare time in enriching the way you present your portfolio. You may work on developing your personal website which has a section to display your portfolio. Alternatively, you can work on revamping an already developed website and give an edge to the way you present your content. It’ll surely make a huge difference in winning new projects.

Write technology blogs on popular blogging sites

Contribute some time for sharing the knowledge you already have. There are several platforms where you can write about the technologies you know and answer the questions of fellow freelancers with your experience. You may also write a blog sharing your journey as a freelancer so that someone thinking over to switch to Full-Time Freelancing might benefit from the same. You might be wondering how this can help you grow your freelancing career! Well, just include the link of your blogging profile in your job proposal and notice the difference in the number of inquires you get after doing that! Moreover, you may also start earning out of writing if you’re consistently good at it! So, it’s totally worth spending time on writing as you’ll have good vibes about contributing your knowledge to the society.

Spare time for your hobbies

Everyone has their personal interests apart from their profession and while you are having some excess time from work, you can spend it on your hobby and improvise on the same. After all, what matters is that you spend your time in something that interests you and keeps you busy.

If none of these tricks work out for you, try finding out your own tactic using which you can keep yourself busy and motivated. ‘coz being idle will make you feel lazy and it’ll be difficult to get back to work once you have a new project to work on.

If this article has helped you, spread the word to your fellow mates and let them know what you do to keep yourself inspired during bad days. Let’s make our community better together!

Anyway, let me try not to be optimistic and write upon my imagination of what according to me would success be, especially when I would be lying back in the bed counting my last few breaths thinking of my journey to conclude if my life was a success at all?

Let me very well clear the first and foremost point, “Success is not Money”, nor is it the lifestyle we are living, though it definitely adds up while defining, but then it is not the sole purpose as what has been the trend recently!

Let me give a glimpse here to put my point forward. Go through the biographies of Einstein, Edition, Wright Brothers, Vesalius, Graham Bell, Henry Ford, and more recent ones to name a few, Walt Disney, Homi Bhabha, Elon Musk, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam and the list goes on..

Do you think all of them were rich? Do you think they all lived a great lifestyle? If not, then how come are all the names known to you? If you dig in deeper, you’ll come to know that the one thing common in all of them is that “they were all driven by Passion” (and not money)!! Do you think they themselves ever thought they would make it big some day? Do you think what they did was solely for earning fame & money? Obviously, it came as a by-product but was definitely not the driving force for their success!

Enough of distraction, let’s come back to where we started!! Defining success! So now you’ll say success is passion! I would say, we’ve still not hit the bull’s eye!! (but flooded this paragraph with full of exclamations!! 😉)

Dude, you might be mad for your passion and still not call yourself a success! Well, that’s the point. The reason you don’t call it a success is because you’re probably not yet “Satisfied”. Ok, so think of that one thing which repeatedly brought you happiness. Was that anything related to your passion? If not, you have blindfolded yourself to call it your passion. You still might not have found one! But if your answer is yes, then you still need to find a deeper meaning to what you’re doing. What matters is you need to be satisfied at the end of the day and feel a sigh of relief when you go to bed each day with a smile on your face!

So is it that we are trying to sideline the money factor all together? Not at all! Somehow, you’ll need to earn a living for yourself, but eventually you can drive yourself in the direction where your passion earns for you and that’s when you’ll slowly start experiencing satisfaction in the true sense, even when you’re not making it big in terms of money.

But what if you’ve multiple interests (like me!) and you’re not sure what actually would turn out to be a driving force in your life? Just try your luck on each one when you get a chance. I believe that’s the best way to explore your real passion and conclude one (or more)! You never know, you may end up having multiple income streams from your interests, and in the worst case, you’ll be broke and will lose out on all your income sources. Well, I would rather take that risk and learn from my journey. But then, you need to be prepared to start from scratch if at all you fail!

This article can surely go on endlessly but I guess it’s high time we end it before it starts getting boring!

So basically, as I told in the beginning, success is hard to define and it’s best to bring your own version of success and add yourself to the definition rather than following someone else’s!