Show HN: I vibecoded a 35k LoC recipe app (recipeninja.ai)

Then you handle those function calls in your javascript.

``` if (function_name === 'search_recipes') { const searchParams = new URLSearchParams();

      if (args.name) searchParams.set('name', args.name);
      if (args.difficulty) searchParams.set('difficulty', formatDifficulty(args.difficulty));
      if (args.min_duration) searchParams.set('minDuration', args.min_duration.toString());
      if (args.max_duration) searchParams.set('maxDuration', args.max_duration.toString());
      if (args.tag) searchParams.set('tag', args.tag);
      
      // Handle ingredients array correctly - the search page expects ingredients[]
      if (args.ingredients && args.ingredients.length > 0) {
        // Clear any existing ingredients
        searchParams.delete('ingredients[]');
        
        // Add each ingredient individually with the correct array notation
        args.ingredients.forEach((ingredient: string) => {
          searchParams.append('ingredients[]', ingredient);
        });
      }
      
      const queryString = searchParams.toString();
      const url = queryString ? `/search?${queryString}` : '/search';
      
      navigate(url);
      return;
    }
    
    // start_cooking function
    if (function_name === 'start_cooking') {
      // First check if we have an onStartCooking callback registered
      if (callbacksRef.current.onStartCooking) {
        callbacksRef.current.onStartCooking();
        return;
      }
    }

I get this search result https://www.recipeninja.ai/search?name=Anti-inflammatory

What browser are you using? Voice mode or typing?

(2) This particular post is an interesting data point in the research of what the current crop of LLM-based tools is capable of. It reads a bit like a Windsurf ad; I would like more details on how the technical side of the development panned out, what were the problems and where, how were they overcome, etc.

(3) The parent comment reads as a somehow funny mix of socialist "anti-greed" agenda and frowning upon the fact of sharing knowledge and experience freely.

Search is working fine, I just tried https://www.recipeninja.ai/search?name=lasagne

I think people will have to recalibrate on this. The LOCs do things that you otherwise would not do. Features and details that simply would not happen — because they are too code/time intensive for most projects. It just won't matter anymore.

> But why would non-technical people would even think in terms of log tailing and version control

They won't! They won't have to. The obvious good stuff that everyone thinks the AI tool should be able do, will just work, because the people building the tools, will mostly obviously focus on making them work.

I have entire codebases of embedded software in C without the shortcuts of modern programming languages in way fewer than 35k lines

[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd11gzejgz4o

There's also apparently a hairstyle? https://www.recipeninja.ai/recipes/hairstyle

https://www.recipeninja.ai/recipe/r_N1VSPtXzCJVV3l/diarrhea-...

I think in the end AI will be more advanced tool, but a tool nonetheless. Like methodologies and principles, good practises etc. - they only work if you use it with care and added thought and adaptation to your case. DRY it a great principle. But sometimes it's better if you repeat yourself. For one reason or another. And these are the the tradeoffs that human in the loop should be making imho.

Contrasted to AI assisted coding, where you would give much more detailed prompts with technical specifications, and read over every line to make sure you understand it before accepting a response.

In theory, vibe coding can let someone with very limited technical expertise build complete apps, so understandably a lot of people are excited by it.

In practice, it doesn't seem like we're there yet. But each new step in AI development leads to people trying again, and it's hard to deny that the results are getting better. I think we're at the stage of where AI image generators were a few years ago. Very much in the uncanny valley.

I've written more about it here: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Mar/19/vibe-coding/ and here: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Mar/23/semantic-diffusion/

Also vibe code has a parallel feature, while the code is generating, you are also doing live review and correcting it towards right direction, so depending on your experience, the end product can be a bad mess or wonderful piece of creation and maintenance dream.

The issue with seasoned SWE is that, the moment a mistake(or bad pattern) is made, the baby is thrown with bath water.

For a tiered app like the one presented, 35k LOC is not really that impressive if you think about it. A generic react based front end will easily need a large number of LOC due to modular principle of components, various amounts of hooks and tests(nearly makes us 25-40% of LOC). A business layer will also have many layers of abstractions and numerous impl. to move data between layers.

The vibe code shines, when you let it build one block at a time, limit the scope well and focus. Also, 2-3 weeks is a lot of time to write 35k LOC. at start of any new project, LOC generation rate is very high. But in maintenance phase it significantly falls as smaller changes are more common.

> I struggle to find much utility in terms of actually writing code.

I personally feel you need to give up some control and just let the LLM do its thing if you want to use it to help you build. It honestly does a lot of things in a more verbose way and I've come to the conclusion that it is an LLM writing code for another LLM. As long as I can debug it, I'm okay with the code, as I can develop at a pace that is truly unreal.

I finished my "Recent" contexts feature in a half a day, today. Without the LLM, this would have taken me a week I think. I would say 98% of my code in the past few months has been AI generated. You can see a real life work flow here:

https://app.gitsense.com/?chat=eece40e2-6064-46d2-9bf1-d868c...

I truly believe if you provide a LLM with the right context, it can meet your functional specs 90% of the time. Note the emphasis on functional and not necessary style. And if *YOU* architecture your code properly, it should be 100% maintainable.

I do want to make it clear that what I am doing right now is not novel, but I believe most problems are not. If the problem is not well understood, it can be a challenge like my my chat bridge feature. This feature allows you import Git repos for chatting but I will probably need to rewrite 50% of the LLM code since the solution it built is not scalable.

After seeing how people like Andrej Karparthy used vibe coding to generate applications https://x.com/karpathy/status/1903671737780498883?s=61 I realize that

you need to be clear on what you want the LLM to do break down the tasks and give byte sized tasks to llm to do specific thing and sometimes I had to tell it not go and change random files because it found the need to refactor them.

For code? Autocomplete on steroids is the killer-app.

The other things the LLMs give me are prone to be over-engineered/overly verbose code or similar.

I went through a lot of "Why are you also doing $FOO then $BAR? Doesn't seem necessary if we skip them and do $BAZ which will make one or both of those redundant" and it responding "You're right! Lets use $BAZ instead".

And giving them code to make a small change to was pointless - they would often, but not always, make an incidental change far from the point where you asked for the change.

But autocomplete? That works just great and because I've already got context of the code I am writing I can check it in (at most) two seconds and move on.