Tom Loosemore

I got the slow train from Totnes to St Ives on Saturday.

To close off my recent vibe coding interlude, I used the MissingBenefit API I built last weekend to make two experimental variants of a Benefits Calculator Chatbot. As ever, I learned a lot.

The first prototype is a mobile web benefits calculator chatbot. Feel free to play with it at BenefitBot.app (It kinda works OK, even with voice).

The second prototype is a voice-powered native app just for smartphones. To play with this you’ll first need to install an ‘app preview’ app called Expo on your phone, as I’ve not put my app in either of the app stores. Have a play, if you’re brave (It barely works).

Remember, these apps are toys to help me learn, as was the API I made. If you want a real expert on UK benefits calculators, then I recommend Gareth Morgan MCLIP FRSA, who built his first one over 30 years ago. He is wise enough to counsel that such benefits calculators are at best a gateway to the kinds of advice that most people need.

However, they have helped me learn a few more lessons about vibe coding:

1) You can now get 95% of the way to a decent prototype by writing just one prompt (true for both Replit and Lovable). That’s amazing, notwithstanding they’re leaning hard on the MissingBenefit API.

2) But it then takes several hours to iron out the 5% of remaining product bugs to get to the point where my professional pride will just about let me share the urls with you, albeit still laden with dire warnings.

3) Native apps are harder. I gave up trying to improve the Voice-powered Benefits Checker app after an hour or so, when I realised that the mobile web version was doing voice recognition better. That said, this was my first native app, whereas I’ve been making web-based products for over 30 years, so YMMV.

4) By default, the vibe coding tools like Replit or Lovable will give you a product that is likely to be highly insecure. Read Harry Metcalfe’s recent post on the topic. You do not want to be using them for doing anything remotely serious. For now, these are tools with which to play and learn (I mean, they *really* should be helping you avoid basic XSS risks…)

5) Voice to text technology is now incredibly good, and is a commodity. I used OpenAI’s Whisper API and the results are fantastic. I was miffed to discover that my Android phone defaults to a soft Mancunian lilt when I’d asked it to speak in a Brummie accent.

Right, enough on vibe coding.

I’ve been spending my time in St Ives playing with AI Agents, of which more anon.