AI, Fairy's, and Agile
Now hose 3 words don't generally go together, but trust me its not just clickbait (well just a little). I had an epiphany recently, and I want to take you on that journey. Vibe coding has become a key part of nearly all my workflows for a while now, and most of the time its not to create an end product, but to enable me to do something else. Converting SharePoint pages to markdown, create an app…
AI, fairy tales, and agile methodologies are seemingly unrelated concepts, but they intersect in an intriguing way. The author recently had an epiphany while creating a progressive web app (PWA) to help their six-year-old daughter track her reading progress and preferences. Initially, the author envisioned a simple app that could display all Rainbow Magic Fairy books, allow the child to mark them as read, and save her preferences for offline use.
The author's initial prompt to an AI was straightforward: create a mobile/tablet app to track the daughter's reading. The app needed to be lightweight (HTML/CSS/JS) and save data locally, with the capability for export/import between devices. The visual design should mirror the Rainbow Magic Fairy books, and it should include every book with its cover and brief biography. The child should be able to search, favorite, and mark books as read, with milestone badges awarded upon reaching certain read counts.
The author discovered that AI-generated book covers were insufficient, so they found an alternative API to provide the necessary images. Subsequent updates to the app included sorting favorite books, viewing read books in chronological order, and implementing a "scroll-to-top" feature to address usability concerns. The author recognized that the rapid, iterative process facilitated by AI eliminated the need for extensive planning, detailed requirements, and traditional agile practices.
Instead, they proposed a new approach: focus on the core problem the user is trying to solve, gather a high-level description of expectations, design a simple prototype, and continuously iterate through build-test-user feedback until the desired outcome is achieved.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
