How Kiro Specs Made Me Ship a Full-Stack AI App in 48 Hours

Linford — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 00:23:22 +0000

How Kiro Specs Made Me Ship a Full-Stack AI App in 48 Hours

The Challenge

I had 48 hours to build NecroNet-a full-stack AI application that resurrects dead web artifacts (Flash, old HTML) into an interactive museum. That's:

React + Next.js frontend
FastAPI backend
Supabase database
AWS S3 storage
ElevenLabs voice integration
Ruffle emulator for Flash playback

48 hours. Solo developer. This needed serious automation.

The Solution: Kiro Specs

Instead of jumping into code, I spent 30 minutes writing /resurrection.spec.md:

Project: NecroNet
Goal: Resurrect obsolete web artifacts into an interactive museum
Stack: FastAPI, Next.js, Supabase, S3, ElevenLabs
Pipeline:

User uploads artifact → Backend detects MIME type

Migration service → Ruffle for Flash, sanitize HTML

AI narration → ElevenLabs generates ghost curator voice

Museum exhibit → Published to gallery
Database:

artifacts table (id, name, type, storage_url, status, ghost_narration_url)

migration_logs table (artifact_id, event, timestamp)

Then I gave Kiro this spec and asked: "Generate the database schema, API endpoints, and migration pipeline based on this."

Result? Kiro generated code that actually fit together. No refactoring. No "wait, this doesn't match the schema." It just worked because Kiro understood the entire system upfront.

Why Specs Beat Vibe Coding

Vibe Coding: "Make me a file upload endpoint"

Kiro generates a handler function
You paste it in
You realize it doesn't know about your S3 bucket configuration
You ask Kiro again: "Update it to use AWS"
You debug for 30 minutes
It still doesn't integrate with your migration pipeline

Spec-Driven: Define the contract upfront

Kiro sees the full architecture
Generated code respects the database schema
Endpoints return the right data types
Integration points are already designed
Code ships with 80% fewer surprises

The Steering Docs Cherry on Top

I also created /curator.steering.md:

Curator Steering
Voice: Spooky but Professional
Tone: Witty, preservationist, theatrical
Examples:

"This Flash game was released in 2003 during the golden age of Newgrounds..."

"The original devs are probably on LinkedIn now. 🎃"

"Museum note: This artifact demonstrates early web creativity..."

text

Every time Kiro wrote UI copy or generated the ElevenLabs narration prompt, it followed this steering. Result: the entire app had one cohesive personality. Not generic. Not "meh." Haunted.

The Numbers

Time to MVP: 6 hours (thanks to spec-driven generation)
Time debugging integration bugs: ~30 minutes (Kiro already aligned everything)
Lines of code I had to rewrite: < 100 out of 5000+
Coffee cups: 4 (could have been 8 with vibe coding)

What I Learned

Specs are documentation AND contracts. Kiro uses them to generate aligned code. So do future developers reading your codebase.
Steering matters. Without it, every generated artifact is a snowflake. With it, your product has a voice.
Context is king. Vibe coding = asking for help with no context. Specs = walking someone through your entire system first.

The Bottom Line

If you are shipping under deadline (or just shipping, period), stop vibe coding. Write a spec. Give it to Kiro. Watch your project assemble itself.

The future of development isn't "write better prompts." It is "write better specs."

kiro #AI #Development #Automation #Hackathon

Excited to share our Echo Location Project, created together with @williamhenryking for the Google AI Studio Multimodal Challenge! #devchallenge #googleaichallenge #ai #gemini

Linford — Sun, 14 Sep 2025 22:25:28 +0000

Google AI Challenge Submission

William Henry King

Sep 14 '25

Echo Location Project [Google AI Studio Multimodal Challenge]

#devchallenge #googleaichallenge #ai #gemini

Comments 3

3 min read

DEV Community: Linford

How Kiro Specs Made Me Ship a Full-Stack AI App in 48 Hours

How Kiro Specs Made Me Ship a Full-Stack AI App in 48 Hours

The Challenge

The Solution: Kiro Specs

Why Specs Beat Vibe Coding

The Steering Docs Cherry on Top

The Numbers

What I Learned

The Bottom Line

kiro #AI #Development #Automation #Hackathon

Excited to share our Echo Location Project, created together with @williamhenryking for the Google AI Studio Multimodal Challenge! #devchallenge #googleaichallenge #ai #gemini

Echo Location Project [Google AI Studio Multimodal Challenge]