So, I built an app for myself. It's a personal tool called So Very Word.
It's a vocabulary app, and I made it for a pretty simple reason: I say "so" and "very" all the time, and I wanted a quick way to reach for a better word instead. That's really all this app is.
I built it using Claude Code, and I've been trying something new lately — logging every decision I make when I build an app. This one ended up taking 48 decisions, put together in about four hours over two days.
It's a simple application, and I deployed it through Vercel.
Here's how it works.
When you open it, there's a field at the bottom that just says "so very," and you type a word into it. So let's say I want to write "I'm so happy" or "I'm so excited to see you" — I'd type in "excited." It thinks for a second, shows "looking," and then gives me a list of stronger words I could use instead of "so excited" or "so happy."
So I'll get something like "overexcited" or "agog," and if I tap on one, it pulls up a definition, or a few. "Agog," for example, is "a state of high anticipation, excitement, or interest" — not one I'd reach for, honestly, but "overexcited" works, "stimulated" is a good one, "thrilled" works too.
And that's it. That's the entire app.
I made 48 decisions for version one in four hours over two days.
All of the definitions and word suggestions come from a free API called Datamuse, which was simple to use and simple to set up.
There are also a couple of small touches I care about: each word shows its pronunciation off to the right, and next to that there's a color-coded bar. Green means it's a strong match, and those sit at the top; as you move down the list, the bar shifts from gold to maroon as the matches get weaker.
The thing I was most intentional about was the UI. I wanted it to feel seamless, with as few taps as possible — which is exactly why the input sits at the bottom of the screen, right where your thumb already is, instead of floating in the middle. I just wanted the whole thing to feel effortless to use.
If you'd like to use it too, you can.
For version two, the main thing I'd add is an external link button out to something like dictionary.com, so you could open the full entry whenever you wanted more. But for now, it does exactly what I needed it to do, in the least amount of time.
It was a simple project, but I kept myself organized and logged every decision along the way.
It's simple, it's to the point, and honestly, that's all that matters.
Live Preview: https://so-very-word.vercel.app/
Check out the video I made about it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/vfMKJ0PVXIo
Follow me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kaylamichjones
Kayla
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