Bolt.new free weekend + the World’s Largest Hackathon presented by Bolt, part 1

Thanks to a random Substack I happened across while procrastinating (as one does), I found out about a free weekend for Bolt.new, one of those AI-powered web dev tools that lets you “chat” your way to a working web app.

Not one to miss a free anything—and enticed by the idea of a hackathon with less than 12 hours to submit? Sign me up!

Idea 1: Storyboarding Application

In another life, I’m a mystery writer. Actually, in this life I am, too—just not full-time. But I’ve been itching to build a web-based tool that would help me:

• Start from classic story templates (like the trusty three-act structure)

• Build out advanced outlines

• Flesh it all out into a full-blown novel

Other features are still brewing (Coming Soon 🌠), but you get the gist.

Enter ChatGPT: My MVP Co-Founder

Before jumping into Bolt, I turned to my trusty ChatGPT account to have a frank and honest chat about what I wanted to build.

And real talk? I love using ChatGPT as a sounding board. It’s never just “give me code.” It’s a back-and-forth, like talking to a helpful intern who actually listens—we refine the ideas, throw out the bad ones, and get somewhere real.

The prompt

We started with a simple prompt. And holy crap Bolt.new just ran with it.

I specifically requested a Next.js/TailwindCSS application, with no backend (for now) and using local browser storage at this stage of the MVP.

It scaffolded out a beautiful app with the basic views and workflows I’d asked for. Like, real usable scaffolding. Was it perfect? No. A few sidebar links didn’t do anything. But nothing a few extra prompts couldn’t fix.

Bonus points: One-click deploy to Netlify. Chef’s kiss.

AI = Intern (That Sometimes Sets the Office on Fire)

Now, I try to treat any AI tools like an intern:
You get small, well-scoped tasks. I’ll supervise you. We’ll see how it goes.

This strategy paid off... until it didn’t.

Once I had the MVP working, I tried to add a new feature. Something simple. Should’ve been a slam dunk

The problem

Suddenly:

• Next.js refused to compile

• One of the TypeScript files got cut off halfway, like it lost power mid-keystroke

• Every build attempt crashed

• Even clearing .next/ and reinstalling node_modules didn’t help

• Minimal reporting from Bolt.new other than a generic Terminal Error

I suspect we hit some kind of OOM (Out Of Memory) issue behind the scenes, but Bolt.new couldn’t recover from it. And it couldn’t fix itself, either—leaving me in a "staring at cryptic build errors" kind of situation.

If it wasn’t a free weekend, this would have cost a fortune.

Fortunately, there’s a Github integration that auto-commits, so it was trivial to get back to a good spot.

Next steps?

I still have my code, and my ideas, so I’m almost certainly going to pick up this application again next time I have a free weekend. I probably won’t use Bolt.new for this one, though.

The Deployed App: Storyboard

🔗 Storyboard Live App

Idea 2?

Documented here. This one went better!