The latest articles on DEV Community by Johan Sulaiman (@jsulaiman). https://dev.to/jsulaiman https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F677839%2Fadf561e9-f3fa-4e5b-8654-80781bea32ca.jpeg https://dev.to/jsulaiman en Johan Sulaiman Sun, 19 Jul 2026 23:25:39 +0000 https://dev.to/jsulaiman/a-one-weekend-ai-build-stack-and-the-day-i-finally-made-peace-with-iam-17fd https://dev.to/jsulaiman/a-one-weekend-ai-build-stack-and-the-day-i-finally-made-peace-with-iam-17fd <p>I spent this weekend finally joining the vibe coding revolution: not by writing much code — but building the thing that writes it.</p> <p>The shift: I stopped treating my AI tools as a smarter autocomplete and started treating them as a small team that hands work to each other. One prompt in plain English, and the "how" runs itself.</p> <h2> The Weekend #1 stack </h2> <p>Here's the actual wiring from two sessions (~10 hours, 158 shell runs, 12 tools stitched together):</p> <p><a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F38i23v8vcpwi7vz4g52z.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"><img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F38i23v8vcpwi7vz4g52z.png" alt=" " width="800" height="600"></a></p> <ul> <li> <strong>You → Claude Code (orchestrator).</strong> Plans, runs the shell, writes files, and drives a real browser to verify its own work.</li> <li> <strong>Local agent mesh.</strong> A local Qwen 2.5 model via Ollama, Cline inside VS Code, and a GitHub MCP server bridging the repo over Docker.</li> <li> <strong>Code &amp; cloud.</strong> A Vue web app on a staging environment, backed by AWS Amplify + DynamoDB (and, yes, IAM).</li> <li> <strong>Data platform.</strong> A Python pipeline → DuckDB → Metabase dashboards.</li> <li> <strong>Cross-cutting.</strong> An always-on monitor + architecture-hygiene dashboard (LaunchAgent), and persistent memory files so context carries from one session to the next — I'm not re-explaining myself every morning.</li> </ul> <h2> The funny part: IAM </h2> <p>I have <em>always</em> hated IAM. Users, roles, policies, access keys — historically my cue to throw my hands up and quietly give up on whatever I was building.</p> <p>This weekend I ran <code>amplify pull</code> and the whole thing — user, profile, policies, access keys — came up correctly in minutes. Even the scary <strong>"owners may reassign ownership"</strong> warning didn't send me running. After years of that being my wall, it just… wasn't. A genuine 0→1 for me.</p> <p>That's the real story of "productivity" here. It's not that I type faster. It's that the tasks I used to avoid — the ones that quietly killed projects before they started — are now approachable. The ceiling moved because the floor did.</p> <h2> Up next </h2> <p>Autonomous agents that build and self-improve on these projects, so the loop closes without me holding every thread. Curious, and a little cautious, about what that changes. Or a one-stop social media posting engine. Or a 3-way orchestration between ChatGPT, Claude, and my localLLM, to maintain my vibe coding momentum even when I hit token usage limits.</p> <p>What's the task you've always avoided that AI finally made approachable?</p> ai productivity devops webdev