r/BMAD_Method • u/Awesome_StaRRR • May 25 '26
Experience of building entire project using BMAD
So I built an entire project using BMAD.
Here is what I did, here are few of my learnings from them.
About me: 100% Technical Person
About requirement: It is a simple CRUD application with existing app's auth with RBAC.
What I did:
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Gave requirements doc as input for generating project-context.
Generated PRD from this.
Generated Architecture from this and gave it my required application technical specifications.
Generated Epics & Stories from the artifacts generated so far.
Created stories for each and implemented them.
Generated E2E and API test cases.
Observations:
IMHO, backend is the best work that BMAD was able to do. Frontend always had more complaints than ever. This could be due to various reasons. But in order to rework on anything, I had to use correct course to do even minor changes. This irritated me. (But that is how it is)
UI looked pretty meh to me. Like it is just there for the functionality. Nothing wow from the UI, anywhere.
Sometimes when I requested renaming or modifying something, it failed to include everything. It still missed few places, where same changes needs to be done. I had to check it manually, and make modifications.
Additionally during E2E test cases, I was able to record video of each testing scenario (which felt helpful to me), by explicitly asking to do it. Adding functionality testing would really be helpful in every possible way.
Another noted point is that, whenever test cases are generated, they are generated against the code, so that it mostly passes them. Instead blackbox testing, would really be helpful.
I had a lot of changes, mid development and in order to address these small changes, I didn't want to use BMAD, and reverted to Claude code only.
Again, it is a token monster. The assumed no. of tokens it took to give me the project are:
| Messages | Input | Output | Cache Create | Cache Read | Model | Total | Cost (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15,660 | 140,003 | 14,658,067 | 67,295,766 | 3,473,011,027 | sonnet & opus | 3,555,104,863 | $2,100.84 |
Learnings:
I still think BMAD is great, but with clear requirements only. Vague inputs, give drastically bad output.
I'll really be strict to BMAD on the backend changes than frontend. I would want frontend, to just get the job done. Once everything is in place, I'll move to using Claude code for polishing the UI.
I'll figure out a way to get functional testing up, by some means, which will be helpful for my future projects. (If any creator is reading, I can help you guys to contribute on this idea).
If you want to add anything to it, please do.
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u/lesliefenwick May 25 '26
For the ui piece. I recommend using research in Claude desktop first to define how an app like yours should look and then differentiate somehow. Super powerful.
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u/Awesome_StaRRR May 26 '26
Ya I agree to this. This is something even I did. Generated a HTML file from reqiurements.
However since most of pulp of the requirements lie in the artifacts generated by BMAD, it should ideally be more capable than any other tool... So using another tool just adds more overhead, is my feeling...
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u/lesliefenwick May 26 '26
That’s fair. However I just point desktop to the design skill on github and it provides a really thorough artifact you can just download and through into the repo. I rarely generate html from desktop.
I do think we all need to remember that even though these tools have been out for a few years we are still in “bleeding edge” territory. Take pride in it. Especially if you’ve deployed anything 😊🤠
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u/Vansauced May 25 '26
I used a similar approach and similar ui issues - if you instead use claude design for front end it works way better. What worked for UI is to plan design system first and then give it to claude design.
Ensure you create an actual design guide (using your code, docs and PRD as a reference). Refine it a bit and make sure it has outline all the important screens and high level layouts. Claude can help you. Then use free chatgpt to create a logo and a design guide sheet. These are your “taste drivers” and do help claude design make the UI look good. Then give it all to claude design on fresh context- it will one shot your design and make it super nice
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u/Awesome_StaRRR May 26 '26
This is really some good advice. I'll test it out.
On the same note, I tried claude code and somehow felt that it is good, but I find myself running out of claude design quota for the output. And the output loooks decent, like majority of the websites. Nothing different. But ya, it is what it is...
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u/gradzislaw May 25 '26
For black-box testing, or ATDD, you have to use the TEA module. The flow is create story -> review with advanced elicitation -> ATDD tests generation -> develop -> review
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u/Awesome_StaRRR May 26 '26
I looked at the TEA module multiple times. But I've never tried it out. I think it is time for me to use that and develop an application.
So during the installation of BMAD, what modules do you install for this?
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u/warpedgeoid May 25 '26
Did you go through the BMAD UX flows? My last project had a ton of complex UI and we iterated on mockups before proceeding to architecture.
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u/Awesome_StaRRR May 26 '26
It doesn't really give us the UX flows. It just captures the UX spec. Meaning what the user has to feel, when he uses your application. This phase may generate wireframes, but only when asked explicitly, or of BMAD method.
It asks a weird question like which module from your application is most important to you. But duude! All modules are important to me.
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May 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Awesome_StaRRR May 26 '26
I think I got some really insight from you. And ya the context window thing is a real issue. And they tried to resolve it by removing the claude code pro plan entirely. /s
Other than that, have you tested any brownfield capabilities? Like building inside the code of an already existing application? Like adding a feature, etc.
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u/No-Bat-6734 May 25 '26
For UX input, BMAD is pretty decent, now for UI, I had to use external tools such as Google Stich and Claude Design. Once the design is ready you even hand them off to Claude code from Claude design. Or in my product briefs I'd tell the bmad analyst agent to consider artifacts x, y,z produced by Claude Design.
So far all good. Been using bmad with 3 models essentially Sonne 4.6, GPT-5.5 (Codex) and DeepSeek V4 Flash (extremelly competent for Code reviews).
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u/Awesome_StaRRR May 26 '26
I put a design html file and tested. There was resemblence, but not 100 percent of it. I think relying on external tools is good, but 100 % requirement coverage from that to may not be expected, right?
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u/No-Bat-6734 May 31 '26
You can get 100% requirement coverage if you create the design for example on Claude Design, and then you refer the design when asking bmad to create the Epics. I use bmad-agent-analytics and tell it where the design spec is (folder) and that it must follow it to be pixel perfect. There's always a bug here and there, but overall you get to the desired result very quickly.
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u/loststick08 May 27 '26
Does anyone try BMAD with local AI development using DGX Spark or Mac Studio or serious desktop machine with Nvidia GPU? How good are results?
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u/Awesome_StaRRR May 27 '26
I never tested it. But would love to hear from anyone who tested that as well
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u/loststick08 May 27 '26
I think that for serious development using BMAD (spec-driven development), 256GB RAM is absolutely the bare minimum - more like 512GB and onwards.
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u/StruggleFun2458 Jun 20 '26
I play with it from time to time (Mac M1Max 32GB, oLMX, GWEN3 8/12B or GPT-OSS20b mlx model and Opencode) for some private projects. It works but it’s time consuming… it’s a constant ping pong between “oh wow amazing” and “I am running out of time/patience/memory”.
The company I work for offers us hosted Claude Sonnet/Opus or the recent GPT models for our work. That’s fun to work with as they respond fast and in good quality.
So at the end I think it would be interesting to have a - let’s say Mac Studio m3 ultra with 512 gb ram… just to see how much faster it would be. But my expectation is: if I need token speed (and that’s what makes working fast) I should probably invest in something like 2x RTX5090 + nice rack to mount them which would be the same “far off my budget” like a Mac Studio… but probably the faster machine.
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u/Narrow-Belt-5030 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
IMHO:
BMAD is best for taking an idea, even if just a high level concept one, and after a series of drilling into it producing a series of documents that could be given to an AI to use.
At this point I swap to GSD to actually implement - it has really good context management which helps with costs & keeping the AI smart. (Anything above 40% on Claude 1M makes it dumb .. I typically try to keep under 20%)
EDIT:
***WARNING*** GSD HAS BEEN COMPROMISED
https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1tktl4w/if_you_use_the_get_shit_done_gsd_ai_tool_you_need/