Follow as we build the HotDog App with bolt.new: Your Dog's Progress Journal

Hello everyone :)

My husband @chrislally and I have a 4-year old Cockapoo Momo, and she is quite reactive to say the least! We are both coders but have never built an app before. When we came across the bolt.new hackathon and realized we can hopefully build an app (we know react, so expo could be perfect) to help anyone with a reactive pup track goals, training, and more (with the help of AI to make things easy)

I'll be documenting our prompts and progress here if you'd like to follow along!

• Ana & Chris

OUR FIRST PROMPT
TESTFLIGHT APPROVED

Comments

[Dotallio]

Love how thorough your planning is, and the onboarding flow is spot on for new users! Curious - what’s your vision for using AI in the app later on?

[Ana]

We've had some success with testing native transcription so far!

This required an expo development build to use the phone's microphone but with native transcription we don't need to use a 3rd party service to transcribe the audio in real time.

Chris loves the AI SDK from Vercel for Next.js projects but I think it should work well here too as a helpful library. We'll ideally try to get the transcribed audio to translate to structured json with a model like Google's Gemini Flash!

[Chris Lally]

Yes, I love the AI SDK! Trusting AI to suggest goals seems like another natural step.

We aren't official dog trainers so we'd be careful using AI to suggest HOW people should train their dogs. Not something I'd rule out, but leaning on and citing expert advice would be an important step before moving forward.

[Ana]

We decided to spend some time working on our first prompt so the app had a solid foundation to start with. We tried to design the structure around the type of simple yet helpful app we'd want to use! We also thought out what databases tables we wanted to start with (we love using supabase in nextjs apps so a postgres mindset seemes like a good way to go)

Here is our very first prompt to bolt.new to kick off HotDog!

Initial Build Scope:
The initial version should be basic and functional, built to run in Expo Go. It should use mock/test data for all dynamic content (like goals, sessions, dog profiles) to allow for rapid UI development and testing without requiring a full backend implementation at the start.

1. Core Concept & App Type

App Name: HotDog
Short Description: Your Dog's Progress Journal
Tagline: Less chaos, more progress.

Core Idea:
Life with a reactive dog is chaotic. HotDog helps make it manageable.

From leash reactivity to muzzle training—or just building better habits—HotDog gives you simple tools to stay consistent, track meaningful progress, and log each training session effortlessly.

Track what matters:
- Set goals that actually make sense for your dog
- Log triggers, wins, and other factors affecting training
- Record quick audio logs and get AI-generated summaries
- Share your dog’s journey with trainers, vets, or family
- Look back and say: “Wow, we’ve come a long way.”

No guesswork or perfect pups required.

Just structure, reflection, and support—so you can keep showing up, even on the tough days.

Platform: This will be a mobile app for both iOS and Android, built with Expo (React Native) and designed to run in Expo Go for initial development.

Philosophy: Built by reactive dog owners. Stay consistent, track progress, and feel good about training—even when it’s chaotic.

2. Welcome & Onboarding Flow

The app will have a distinct flow for new users to introduce them to the core concepts and gather initial data.

A. Welcome Screen (app/welcome.tsx)

[ IN THIS SECTION WE INCLUDED THE EXACT DETAILS WE NEEDED ON WELCOME SCREEN ]

B. Multi-Step Onboarding (app/onboarding/)
After signing up, the user will be guided through a [X] -step onboarding process:
[ IN THIS SECTION WE INCLUDED THE STEPS WE WANTED FOR ONBOARDING ]

3. Core Architecture & UI Components

A. Modal System
The app will use a sophisticated, stack-based modal system.
[ IN THIS SECTION WE INCLUDED THE STEPS FOR THE MODAL SYSTEM ]

4. Key Features & Functionality (Main App)

The app will allow users to:
- Manage their profile, create profiles for multiple dogs, and invite co-owners.
[ IN THIS SECTION WE CONTINUED TO INCLUDE THE STEPS FOR WHAT USERS CAN DO ]


5. Pages / Screens (Main App Tabs)

The main app will consist of the following tabbed screens:
- Today Screen (Dashboard): The main hub with a dog selector and weekly calendar to view and log daily sessions.
[ IN THIS SECTION WE CONTINUED TO INCLUDE THE TABS ]

6. Design & UI/UX Guidelines

- The aesthetic should be clean, modern, and intuitive.
[ IN THIS SECTION WE CONTINUED TO INCLUDE THE UI/UX GUIDELINES ]

7. Technology Stack

The project will be built with the following technology stack:
- Frontend: React Native with Expo.
- Styling: Tailwind CSS (via Nativewind).
- Backend & Database: Supabase.
- Supabase Tables: `dogs`, `events`, `goals`, `posts`, `profiles`, `user_devices`, `users-dogs`.

AND THE RESULTS ARE IN!

After just one prompt (And a quick install and run with pnpm since npm failed) we've got an interactive mobile app! It has all 4 main pages after a mock sign in and is fully responsive.

[Chris]

Very exciting to see our app go from the whiteboard to the app store so quickly!

[Ana]

Making great progress on our onboarding design!

After the whiteboard our flow has been to let bolt try variations of the screens, brainstorm in Canva to choose the best options then go back to the codebase to get them working.

[Ana]

TESTFLIGHT APPROVED!!

Very excited to share that Apple just approved our app for TestFlight beta testing! Even if you don't have a dog of your own, if you'd be open to downloading and sharing any feedback we'd really appreciate it!

SPECIFIC FEEDBACK REQUESTS: We're testing the onboarding flow, transcription (voice to text), and AI-powered note organization (text to structured notes). Please also test out creating goals and posting/replying to posts in the community tab! Any and all feedback welcome

testflight.apple.com/join/S3AhQUP8

[Chris]

We have continued to release several new updates to our IOS app and have been hearing all the requests for android. We are excited to share that HotDog is now available to early testers on Android and the app will be generally available in the Play Store soon!

You can download and start using HotDog now on android with this link: Download HotDog Training App for Android

[Chris]

Apple's app store review process is not easy!

We are on our 3rd attempt but I think we've got it this time.

One accomplishment I'm very proud of is using using Gemini Flash to auto-review all posts for compliance with our community rules!

Also enabled not only blocking, but also following in the app for this version!

[Chris]

HotDog is approved and live in the Apple App store!

This took several iterations going back and forth with Apple but we are live :D

There are several bugs we are hoping to improve in an update soon, stay tuned!


[Chris]

Our first customer!

[Vida Khoshpey]

Super cool 😎

[Ana]

Thank you!

[Ana]

Connected with supabase, getting auth working next!

[Ana]

To design the database we found it helpful to keep our same mindset of really thinking through the planning stages!

If helpful for anyone, here is the prompt we ultimately used to design our supabase schema:

Generate a Supabase database schema.

**General Requirements:**
- All tables should have `id` (UUID, primary key), `created_at` (timestamp with time zone), and `updated_at` (timestamp with time zone, nullable) columns unless specified otherwise.

**Table Definitions:**

**1. `profiles` Table**
Stores user profile information, including their name, picture, and a reference to their currently active dog.

**2. `dogs` Table**
Stores profiles for each dog, including their name, bio, breed, date of birth, and pictures. It should also include JSONB fields for flexible metadata and visibility settings.

**3. `users-dogs` Table (Junction Table)**
Links users to dogs, defining ownership and permissions. It should track if the user is an owner and if an invite is pending.

**4. `goals` Table**
Stores training goals for each dog, including a name, description, icon, start/end dates, recurrence rules, and estimated duration.

**5. `events` Table**
Logs training sessions or events related to a goal. It should include the scheduled date, completion time, and JSONB fields for notes and progress.

**6. `posts` Table**
Stores community posts. It needs fields for the author, content, status, topic, and relationships to other posts (replies) and other tables like dogs, goals, and events.

**7. `user_devices` Table**
Stores user device information for push notifications, including the push token and device type.

**Enums**

Please also define the following enums in the public schema:

- **`post_status_enum`**: `planned`, `in_progress`, `solved`, `not_planned`, `deleted`
- **`post_topic_enum`**: `general`, `vent`, `advice_needed`, `resource`, `success_story`, `hotdog_issue`, `hotdog_suggestion`, `hotdog_question`

[Ana]

Quick mention on the branding:

(We hired Emily Nancy several years ago for a never-launched NFT project, but we think the dogs she created will be perfect for HotDog!)

[Chris Lally]

• wanted to add, this is a super helpful cmd to generate types from the supabase tables directly (great for strict typing in the .tsx files.

npx supabase gen types typescript --project-id OUR_SUPABASE_PROJECT_ID --schema public > types/supabase.ts

[Chris]

Just created our RevenueCat paywall, super easy! x.com/ChrisLally/status/1936078880...

[Drive zone online]

We’re Ana and Chris—both coders and proud dog parents to a reactive Cockapoo named Momo. We're building our first mobile app, HotDog, for the Bolt.new hackathon! It's designed to help reactive dog owners set training goals, log progress, and get AI-powered support—all built with Expo + Supabase.

[Volodymyr Kuiantsev]

would you consider another backend for your app ? we just started [calljmp.com/] built on Cloudflare and are happy to invite our first free unlimited users