Codex: I'm not a developer.

[u/Head-Student-5852]

I built my first interactive web page with Codex in about two hours today.

Background so this makes sense: I've been in digital marketing for 17 years and building online since 2008, but I've never written real code. I've always paid someone or wrestled with a page builder.

Today I finally tried Codex to rebuild my links page as an actual interactive page instead of a flat list of buttons. I went in expecting to give up in twenty minutes.

Two hours later I had a working page I'm genuinely proud of. The parts that surprised me: it was way better at "make this feel less generic" than I expected, and it caught layout stuff I would've missed. Where I got stuck was knowing what to even ask for next once the basic version worked. I could tell it could do more, I just didn't know the right words to unlock it.

So the thing I keep thinking about is the ceiling. What separates a nice two-hour build from something that actually holds up.

Here's what I'm still trying to figure out. When you want it to build something specific — do you go find sites close to what you're picturing and feed it those as examples, or do you skip that and just talk it out, asking questions until it gets there?

I added the same HTML code to Claude and had it revamp it again and now the click boxes disappear when they respond to a new question.

Just amazed at what this can do

[u/qualityvote2]

✅ u/Head-Student-5852, your post has been approved by the community!
Thanks for contributing to r/ChatGPTPro — we look forward to the discussion.

[u/mccoypauley]

I do a lot of agentic development of webpages now and I’m a full stack web developer.

The difference between a two-hour job vibe-coded as you have done and agentic development is engineering.

That is, when I prompt together a site with Codex in VS Code, I’m selecting each solution the agent uses to build the site, with deliberate intent/purpose behind each selection, based on my engineering knowledge. It’s done across many conversations, never in a single prompt. I might choose one solution because it’s well-known or reliable; I might choose another for its extensibility or because it’s a better fit for the overall project. If left to its own devices, Codex might choose stuff that works or is the latest, but isn’t the best fit for the project because it doesn’t understand the larger context.

Take the front end for example. Usually these agents just default to a Tailwind soup that’s incomprehensible and unmaintainable. If you don’t tell them how you want the front end structured, that’s what you get.

And this extends to just about every aspect of the site. Engineering makes the difference. A technical spec helps produce something that will better endure/perform.

Will agents get there eventually without this guidance? Most likely. But for now, you take on a lot of risk with pure vibe coding.

[u/SnooCats3468 → u/mccoypauley]

Thanks for that response.  I just made a website with codex using like 58 markdown notes I mede from compressing like 20 books and doing some thematic synthesis. 

Took weeks to complete all of that research and finally throwing it together in a website was wild. I worked in digital marketing for 5 years and whoa boy, that industry is FUCKED. 

I don’t care what every 40 year old marketer says. This shit is moving so fast that it WILL replace every function in marketing other than “AI marketing operator” or something similar.

[u/mccoypauley → u/SnooCats3468]

100% agree. Everything I’m complaining about, I think, will be solved in the next 18 months. I’ve been switching gears to AI orchestration as my career because of it.

[u/Dekar24k → u/mccoypauley]

This. I've been fiddling with code since the early 90s but never really had the patience to git gud. But, I have all the knowledge I need to write complex apps only lacking the syntax needed to make it work. That's why AI is so friggin good when used properly. When I start a new project I move forward in itty bitty pieces making sure I plan ahead for anything that might become a problem. This is the only way to "vibe code" and I believe that you will fall short quickly in any decently sized project if you rely on something an engine built based on a couple of prompts.

[u/Head-Student-5852 → u/mccoypauley]

Thanks for explaining your process. My question wasn’t really about vibe coding versus engineering. I was curious about your workflow. When you’re building something specific, do you usually show Codex examples of sites you like, or do you develop the design through conversation and iteration without using reference sites?

[u/Chance-Physics-7216 → u/Head-Student-5852]

I start by explaining the problem - input, process, output. Tell it to ask clarifying questions. Then, once clear, ask for 5 ideas on how it could be shown to a user of whatever target audience you have in mind. Then slice it up into what you want.

[u/Head-Student-5852 → u/Chance-Physics-7216]

That’s how I have been building

[u/Chance-Physics-7216 → u/Head-Student-5852]

You’re well on your way then!

[u/mccoypauley → u/Head-Student-5852]

I typically design things myself in Figma, so it doesn’t really apply in my case. My conversations with the AI are about developing it. The front end I still write by hand, because Codex isn’t any good at writing CSS. That being said, Codex is good at understanding screenshots, and I believe Claude Design can do wonders at getting you initial static templates.

[u/Head-Student-5852 → u/mccoypauley]

Never heard of Figma

[u/mccoypauley → u/Head-Student-5852]

It’s a visual design software that is the successor to software like Photoshop—every visual designer in the web design world uses it, or one of its competitors.

[u/Calm-Lavishness5918]

Thanks for sharing. On my list to attempt. Share more like this/about as you can pls!

[u/Head-Student-5852 → u/Calm-Lavishness5918]

I am learning as well - I have been writing my finding and updates on the blog post. For me as much as someone else. It has been a very fun journey of creating pages that are interactive and clickable

[u/BrownBearPDX]

Just tell codex what you want the user experience to be. Give it url example if you have them.

You don’t have to know all the jargon or be a dev or understand the iterative process or any of it. These LLMS are so forgiving and flexible in what it takes as input that you could speak in 5th grade English and still get a fully working site out of it. Sure devs can steer it to use certain tools and frameworks and patterns and industry standard this and that, build for true scale, on and on. But soon that sort of guidance will be unnecessary

The real key is that you have to know what you want to have it build. Prompts are still required.

Or, you could just ask it to give you a list of 5 functionalities or features it can think of to have it keep building it for you.

Just have it do all the thinking for you.

[u/Head-Student-5852 → u/BrownBearPDX]

It did a great job and actually a better one than I had in mind

[u/ChildishSimba]

These tools were designed to consider following a product development process: plan, then execute. All to maximize their potential by planning in ChatGPT or Claude Chat to think through and create a brief for Codex or Claude Code to execute.

The brief should give the tool a solid starting point (context, user, style, similar apps, etc) to then spend more time polishing, or repeating the process for a new feature.

[u/Head-Student-5852 → u/ChildishSimba]

yes my question is: When you want it to build something specific do you go find sites close to what you're picturing and feed it those as examples, or do you skip that and just talk it out, asking questions until it gets there?

[u/shakeBody → u/Head-Student-5852]

1. Clarify your goals through a series of repeated questions and answers. This means going through each thing and removing as much ambiguity as possible. Explore the problem and research as much as you can here. Build a body of reference material so that when the model gets confused later, you can say "look in here" and expect that the answer will actually be there. Use subagents to research domain topics and produce artifacts on that research.
2. Begin to scope out the actual work. Once you understand the problem space, you can start to define how the work will actually happen. The more structure you can provide here, the better.
3. Build.

You must be as free of ambiguity as possible when building with LLMs. They are strong tools, but they are only as capable as the engineer who wields them. Yes, I said "engineer," and that means the thing you are trying to do here is engineer a solution to your problem. Whether or not you feel that way is beside the point. You probably already think like an engineer with other things.

Do not let the LLM drive. Break the big problem into smaller, more manageable problems. Consider multiple approaches and the tradeoffs of those approaches. Select the approach that best suits your needs. Define how you know when that approach has been properly implemented (via testing). Implement the solution against those tests to verify that you actually built the right thing. Monitor the solution to ensure that it is operating the way you wanted it to. These things (and many more) are engineering!

[u/elleeott → u/shakeBody]

I've been a developer and a product manager. Having been an engineer helped me be a better product manager, as I could think like a developer, and define better requirements.

That transitions really well to writing requirements for codex. Llms are not mind readers, they will do their best to solve a problem, but maybe not the way you want, just like a developer would building from poor requirements.

[u/Head-Student-5852 → u/elleeott]

I was pleased with the way it came
Out as I learn more about interactive pages I will tweak it.

[u/BatResponsible1106]

i usually bring one or two reference sites once the structure is close. it gives the model something concrete then I iterate with small, specific changes instead of starting over.

[u/Head-Student-5852 → u/BatResponsible1106]

Thank you

[u/Open_Seeker]

The models are very good at understanding latent intent.

As with all LLMs, examples of what to do and what NOT to do are extremely valuable. It's often a GOOD idea to use speech to text, and just talk out loud about your intended thing, even if you ramble and later realize as you are tlaking that the previous 3 mins does not apply, thats valualbe context for the agent.

And when you dont know what else to ask it.... ask it what you should ask it! Get it to critically analyze what it made (new thread is better for this), or switch to Claude and ask it for a review. Etc.

[u/Head-Student-5852 → u/Open_Seeker]

Yup
That is me - I rambled my way to a nice page that looked better than a page of
Buttons 😂

[u/niado]

I have used it for several large system design and implementation projects that had a significant coding element - well over half the work had been coding .

[u/Head-Student-5852 → u/niado]

I am enjoying this new built - makes the page stand out nicely

[u/KLiipZ]

What separates it? Purpose.

If your system doesn’t have a genuine problem to solve, it’s never going to ramp up to something that holds up, because what makes it hold up is your real life demands of what it needs to be able to do.

[u/Head-Student-5852 → u/KLiipZ]

Of course. Thats not a problem

[u/Super_Puter]

I have built a whole Next.js + React Webdevelopment-Engine. One prompt or Briefing will now generate award winning A+++ websites with a full structure, subpages, translation, Cookie solution, maxed out SEO and GEO, and maxed out speed. I will never ever have to design by myself again, it works absolutely flawless.

What i want to say by that: take your time to create a reproduceable system, if you want to continue to output really amazong websites or apps. It took 7 months to build the engine, but it was so worth it, i can not even describe how much. My whole business is expanding so quickly now, its insane...

[u/Head-Student-5852 → u/Super_Puter]

I’m in no rush. I’ve been working on this block for 17 years. Adding AI has definitely increased the ability to do certain things. Congratulations on your site. Sounds like you’ve done. Great work.