The latest articles on DEV Community by Veyl Space (@veyl_space). https://dev.to/veyl_space 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%2F4138803%2Fba81669b-f224-4ffa-9720-27b5b1cd4496.png https://dev.to/veyl_space en Veyl Space Wed, 23 Sep 2026 06:38:40 +0000 https://dev.to/veyl_space/how-i-built-an-app-with-no-cs-background-firebase-react-ai-assisted-26jk https://dev.to/veyl_space/how-i-built-an-app-with-no-cs-background-firebase-react-ai-assisted-26jk <p>A few months ago I couldn't tell you the difference between a Cloud Function and a Firestore trigger. Today, Veyl — an anonymous accountability partner matching app — is live in production, handling real-time chat, voice notes, payments, and matching logic.</p> <p>I didn't come from a traditional engineering background. I built Veyl by working closely with AI tools, learning Firebase and React well enough to debug and extend the app myself, one problem at a time.</p> <h2> What Veyl does </h2> <p>Users sign up with a pseudonym (not a real profile), get matched with someone working toward a similar goal, and hold each other accountable through text and voice check-ins. No profile pictures, no public streaks — the anonymity is the whole point.</p> <h2> Some of the harder problems I had to actually understand, not just copy-paste </h2> <ul> <li> <strong>Firestore security rules</strong> — making sure users can only read/write their own data, and that sensitive fields (like premium status) can only ever be set server-side via Cloud Functions, never the client</li> <li> <strong>Atomic batch writes</strong> for the matching system, so two users can't accidentally double-match</li> <li> <strong>Webhook signature verification</strong> (HMAC SHA512) for Paystack payments, plus idempotency handling so a webhook retry doesn't double-charge or re-trigger anything</li> <li> <strong>Voice note encoding</strong> in-browser (OfflineAudioContext → WAV) before upload, to keep file sizes small without a server-side transcoding step</li> </ul> <h2> What I'd tell someone else starting from zero </h2> <p>AI tools are genuinely good at helping you write code — they're not as good at teaching you <em>why</em> it works, or what happens when it doesn't. The debugging is where you actually learn the system. I didn't get to skip that part; I just got a faster way into it.</p> <p>Veyl is live at <a href="https://veyl.space" rel="noopener noreferrer">veyl.space</a> if you want to see the actual result. Happy to answer anything about the stack, the security decisions, or the AI-assisted workflow.</p> webdev firebase react beginners