Vibe Coding: Building a Basic Frontend App

Vibe Coding your way into frontend—build a simple app while keeping it fun and chill.

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Today is all about building a tangible project. We’ll leverage AI to design our app’s user interface, generate the foundational HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and build our very first interactive frontend component. Let’s create something tangible!

🧑‍💻 In this week’s edition: Vibe Coding

• Monday - Understanding AI Coding Tools

• Tuesday - Mastering Prompt Engineering

• Wednesday - Building a Basic Frontend App

• Thursday - Integrating Backend & APIs

• Friday - Debugging and Optimization

• Saturday - Advanced Techniques and Scaling

Question of the day

What is an effective single-sentence prompt to generate the foundational HTML and CSS for a responsive web page?

Let’s find out !

Let’s break it down in today discussion:

• Designing App’s User Interface with AI

• Generating HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

• Using AI for Responsive Design Logic

• Building the First Interactive App Component

Read Time : 10 minutes

💻️Designing App’s User Interface with AI

The traditional paradigm of user interface design, which often commences with graphical mockups and intricate wireframes, is being fundamentally reshaped by AI. Instead of relying on a separate design tool, developers can now initiate the design phase directly within their coding environment using natural language. The AI serves as an intelligent design partner, translating high-level conceptual descriptions into a functional blueprint. This approach bypasses the need for manual pixel manipulation, enabling a more fluid transition from idea to tangible code.

The effectiveness of this process is entirely dependent on the specificity of the prompts. A well-crafted design prompt should meticulously detail the desired layout, stylistic attributes, and core components. For example, a formal request could be: “Generate the foundational HTML structure for a professional blog layout with a distinct header, a main content area for articles, and a sidebar for recent posts.” This level of detail provides the AI with clear visual and structural goals.

This descriptive approach yields tangible outcomes in the form of a high-fidelity wireframe that is simultaneously a functional block of code. The AI’s output, consisting of foundational HTML and CSS, serves as an immediately actionable starting point. This not only significantly accelerates the initial project phase but also reduces the potential for design-to-code translation errors, allowing for a more focused and efficient development cycle.

Want to go beyond the basics? This video is a great resource.

⌨️Generating HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

Once the conceptual design is established, the next crucial step is to translate that vision into the tangible code that forms a web application. An AI assistant excels at this task, efficiently generating the foundational layers of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript from descriptive prompts. This process eliminates the time-consuming manual effort of writing boilerplate code, allowing developers to focus on higher-level logic and unique features.

The generation process can be broken down into discrete steps for each core technology. For the markup, a developer can issue a prompt such as, “Generate the semantic HTML5 structure for the blog layout described previously, including header, main, and footer tags.” To apply style, a follow-up prompt could be, “Compose the CSS to apply a modern, dark theme to this page with a minimalist aesthetic, using a consistent color palette.” This segmented approach ensures each layer of the application is built with a specific purpose in mind.

Finally, to begin adding functionality, you can request the AI to generate JavaScript. For example, to handle user input, a developer could prompt, “Write a JavaScript function to perform client-side validation on an email input field and display a red border if the format is invalid.” This demonstrates how the AI can be used to generate the functional logic for interactive components, bringing the application to life without manual scripting.

🖥️Using AI for Responsive Design Logic

Responsive design is a complex yet essential aspect of contemporary front-end development, requiring a meticulous approach to ensure a web page’s layout and content adapt seamlessly across a multitude of devices and screen sizes. Traditionally, this process involves the manual creation of numerous CSS breakpoints and style adjustments, a task that can be both time-consuming and prone to errors. AI, however, offers a powerful solution by automating the intricate logic required for fluidity.

By analyzing the existing HTML and CSS structure, an AI assistant can be instructed to generate the precise code needed to achieve a responsive layout. A formal prompt could be, “Generate the necessary CSS media queries to ensure this page scales correctly for screens with a maximum width of 768px, optimizing the layout for mobile devices first.” This command directs the AI to identify critical breakpoints and apply them with precision, ensuring that elements resize and rearrange logically.

The AI’s output is not merely a boilerplate but a tailored set of rules designed for the specific project. This includes defining media query breakpoints, adjusting grid and flexbox properties, and modifying typography and spacing to maintain readability. This automated generation of responsive logic saves significant development time, mitigates potential layout bugs, and allows a developer to concentrate on the application’s unique functionality rather than its presentation on different devices.

Broaden your understanding about this by reading this article.

🖱️Building the First Interactive App Component

The final phase of front-end development involves transitioning a static design into a dynamic, interactive application. AI assistants are exceptionally proficient at generating the foundational logic for individual components, enabling developers to build out functionality with remarkable speed. This process moves beyond mere visual presentation to create a tangible user experience, where an application responds to user input and provides a functional service.

To achieve this, developers can issue highly specific prompts that detail the desired behavior of a component. For example, a formal request could be: “Develop a JavaScript function to create a fully functional light/dark mode toggle. The function should listen for a click event on a designated button, apply a corresponding CSS class to the <body> element, and save the user’s preference to localStorage for persistence across sessions.” This level of detail provides the AI with a clear set of tasks to execute.

This systematic approach can be applied to a variety of common interactive elements. For instance, a developer could request a function for client-side form validation that checks for the correct format of an email address. Similarly, prompts can be used to build a simple image carousel that cycles through a set of photos or to create an accordion component for collapsible content. By using the AI to generate these encapsulated pieces of logic, developers can build a feature-rich interface component by component.

Summary

Designing App’s User Interface with AI

• The initial design phase can be accelerated by using AI as a collaborative partner.

• Developers can describe the desired UI using natural language prompts instead of manual wireframing.

• This approach translates high-level conceptual ideas into a functional, coded blueprint.

• It eliminates the need for a separate design-to-code step, making the process more efficient from the start.

Generating HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

• Once the design is set, the AI can seamlessly generate the foundational code for the application.

• You can issue specific prompts for each layer, such as requesting semantic HTML structure or modern CSS styling.

• The AI also provides the necessary JavaScript to add initial functionality.

• This segmented generation process saves significant time on writing boilerplate code, allowing developers to focus on unique features.

Using AI for Responsive Design Logic

• AI is exceptionally good at handling the complex and often tedious logic of responsive design.

• Developers can simply prompt the AI to make a layout responsive for various devices, eliminating the need for manual media queries.

• The AI automatically generates the necessary breakpoints and CSS rules to adjust layouts and element properties.

• This feature saves a substantial amount of time and reduces the potential for layout bugs across different screen sizes.

Building the First Interactive App Component

• The final step in building the frontend is using AI to create interactive, dynamic components.

• You can request specific encapsulated pieces of logic, such as a light/dark mode toggle or a form validation function.

• The AI generates the required JavaScript, bringing the application to life with functionality.

• This focused approach allows developers to build out the app’s features piece by piece, with the AI providing the core functional code for each interaction.

Practical Tips for Frontend Generation.

• Prompt for Semantic HTML - Always request the AI to use semantic tags like <header>, <nav>, <main>, and <footer> to generate code that is more accessible and better for search engines.

• Specify Your CSS Framework - When asking for styling, explicitly mention the framework you prefer, such as “Use Tailwind CSS classes,” to get a clean and consistent output.

• Use a Mobile-First Approach - Instruct the AI to design for smaller screens first, with a prompt like “Create a mobile-first design and then add a media query for desktop,” to ensure a truly responsive layout.

• Ask for Encapsulated Components - For interactive elements, ask the AI to generate self-contained, reusable components to keep your code organized and modular.

• Use a Visual Reference - If possible, describe a visual example, like “a simple card component with an image on top and text below,” to help the AI understand your design vision more clearly.

Answer of the day

What is an effective single-sentence prompt to generate the foundational HTML and CSS for a responsive web page?

Create a responsive hero section.

This specific prompt is effective because it directs the AI to a well-known UI pattern. “Hero section” tells the AI to include a headline, body text, and a call-to-action button, while “responsive” ensures the code includes necessary media queries for different screen sizes. This provides a perfect, functional starting point.

That’s A Wrap!

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