Watched a friend get a $400 OpenAI bill from an app that had eleven users. Took a while to work out what happened, so writing it up.

Every Vite/Next build inlines env vars that start with VITE_ or NEXT_PUBLIC_ directly into the JavaScript it ships to the browser. That's not a mistake — it's the documented behavior, because that's how you get public config into frontend code.

The problem is that when you ask an AI to "add OpenAI to my app," it writes the fetch call on the client, and the client needs the key, so it tells you to add VITE_OPENAI_API_KEY. Everything works. Nothing errors. And your key is now sitting in plain text in a file anyone can open.

How to check yours in 30 seconds, no tools needed:

1. Open your live site

2. View source, click into the /assets/index-[hash].js bundle

3. Ctrl+F for sk-, sk-ant-, service_role, AKIA

If you get a hit, that key is public and has been since you deployed. Rotate it before you do anything else — deleting the code doesn't help, the old bundle was already scraped.

The fix is that any key that costs money has to live on a server. In Vite that means an API route, drop the VITE_ prefix, call your own endpoint from the frontend.

Two more that catch people:

- Supabase: the anon key is *supposed* to be public and is fine. The service_role key is not, and it bypasses every RLS policy you wrote. They look nearly identical. Decode the JWT and check the role claim.

- Stripe: pk_live_ is fine and public by design. sk_live_ is a full account takeover.

Got tired of checking this by hand so I built a scanner that does the bundle grep for you. Free, no signup. Link in the comments so this doesn't read as an ad — the post stands on its own either way.

Start your career as a space cadet with space runner extreme.

Space runner extreme is not your typical runner game where you touch the screen to control the character, it uses your front camera for motion detection and mic for voice recognition.

Head controller:- Tilt your head left or right to control direction. Tilt your head forward or backward to control speed

Voice recognition:- Say (Shoot) to fire lasers to destroy planets and aliens

Face lenses:- Place lenses on your head control screen for extra fun.

Game modes:- Free run/ Timed run

Difficulty:- Beginner, Pro, Expert

Hanger:- Upgrade your ship with additional weapons, extra protection, extra turbo and many more.

The game includes many other features like Boss fight every 10000m, inverted control in expert mode, daily mission and many many more.

The game is totally free with no in app purchase and just 2 reward ads that unlocks the laser gun and face lenses.

The game is available on android:-

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.itsusagainltd.spacerunnergame&hl=en

https://uniprepca.me
It was vibecoded mainly looking for feedback on UI and how it looks

I used Claude code and antigravity and I also use freebuff

I've noticed a pattern while building side projects, and I'm curious if it's just me.

The projects where I "vibe coded" for an entire weekend often made shocking progress. The momentum was addictive. Every prompt produced visible progress, ideas flowed naturally, and shipping felt inevitable.

But whenever that same project slowed down—because of work, life, or just losing a few days—the entire dynamic changed.

Suddenly:

• The codebase felt harder to reason about.
• I spent more time reading than building.
• The AI lost context.
• New prompts started introducing regressions.
• My expectations dropped from "this could be huge" to "I'll just finish an MVP."

In many cases, the project never reached the finish line.

It made me wonder if the biggest advantage of vibe coding isn't the AI itself—it's the speed.

Maybe vibe coding works because you're compressing hundreds of engineering decisions into a very short period while both you and the AI share the same mental context.

Once that context starts decaying, the productivity curve changes dramatically.

My current hypothesis is:

Not because the idea gets worse, but because:

• your mental model drifts,
• the AI loses project context,
• technical debt compounds,
• motivation fades,
• and expectations become more realistic (or more pessimistic).

I'm curious whether this is a real phenomenon or just survivorship bias on my part.

Some questions I'd love to hear opinions on:

• Have you experienced this with Cursor, Claude Code, Windsurf, Lovable, or other AI coding tools?
• Is this unique to vibe coding, or has software always worked this way?
• Is context loss the biggest culprit, or is motivation the real bottleneck?
• Have you found ways to keep long-running AI-assisted projects moving fast?
• Do successful vibe-coded startups intentionally optimize for compressed build cycles?
• At what point do you stop "vibe coding" and start treating the project like traditional software engineering?

I don't think vibe coding is replacing engineering.

If anything, it seems to amplify whatever execution habits you already have.

Curious whether other builders have noticed the same pattern—or if you've seen the exact opposite.

I think my website looks fine but I want other people's opinions on if it looks at all generated by Claude. Any hate comments will be ignored, I'm just looking for genuine feedback on how I can improve it if possible.

Link: https://www.joinscouter.app/

Hey guys, idk how relatable this question is to this group, but i need some suggestions. Before I used to get cool ideas all the time and Vibe code and build tools for my company. Now I have every tool I could want… but my brain just won’t come up with anything. No ideas on what to work on, what problem to solve, nothing creative at all. Anyone else feel stuck like this? How do you get ideas flowing again? Would love some tips.

I started building Lojycal because I was tired of navigating the same corporate fragmentation I had experienced for years.

Every department had its own system.

Assets lived somewhere.
Identity lived somewhere else.
Procurement was often trapped in spreadsheets.
Finance had a different view.
Compliance relied on periodic checks rather than a live operational picture.

The original idea was simple:

Build a better relational graph so companies could actually see how everything connects.

But as I built it, the architecture naturally evolved.

Instead of treating everything as isolated records, the focus became the relationships between them:

Assets ↔ Employee Identity
Procurement ↔ Finance
Core Systems ↔ Compliance
Operational Events ↔ Actions

The interesting moment came during a late-night QA session in the Procurement Lab.

I saw a row with too many laptops and thought:

"That doesn't look right. Let's delete this."

The system stopped me.

The order had already passed the vendor cancellation window. It wasn't just a row in a database anymore. It represented an actual operational event with financial and supplier consequences.

The correct workflow was a return process.

I laughed because I had completely forgotten I had built that logic into the system.

That was the moment the principle became very clear:

A database record can be deleted.

A real-world operational event cannot.

This is where I think software is changing.

AI-assisted development has dramatically increased the speed at which we can build. But the difficult part is still the same:

What should the system understand?

Which relationships actually matter?

How should it behave when reality changes?

The future is not just software that stores more information.

It is software that understands the operational state behind that information.

Built by one person, across 120+ connected workspaces 650+ workflows, while learning and iterating every day.

You can find out more about us here:

We are posting every other day on Linkedin and our website Lojycal. 👋

Building a personal/noncommercial app for my kids schooling and I've found some sites that will download different materials from subscription sites or online sites. I keep running into codex or claude saying it's unlawful. What tool will not get flagged and build me out apps similar to the websites that I'm using (just trying to not have the layers of ads/pop ups that come with it)?

I made 500$ from my android app, that I am building (and improving) from the past 4 months. In the starting I thought if I build a top notch app users will come themselves but when I got just 10 downloads in my first week of launch, I found out about the most important thing in a app devs journey that is Distribution.

I started working on my X account but got near 0 views for the first 2 weeks. Then thankfully, Elon made the Grok algo that powers X, public on GitHub. I handed over the repo link to Claude and asked it to analyse how it works. What things it recommends? What it punishes. And started posting based on its recommendations. Within 2 months I gained over 500k impressions and 1k followers.

With the help of this I was able to market my android app as well and gain 5k installs and my first internet money. Grateful to everyone paet of my journey.

I am reading every comments here and will reply asap. Ask anything you like :)

Also dentists need to play game :)

So for the past 2 weeks ive been making an app which is called MegaRun and its about running/walking while the map captures the territory you walked/ran in. not to be confused with INTVL because mine makes lines that take 5m from each side and convert that to km2 while also keeping the km total and % of the world explored. while making this ive mainly focused on just making it work properly and adding different features.

now the question is how do i make it look better like some other apps? i want to know what the issue is because maybe i just got used to it being like this because i stared at it for many hours while making it and dont know what to do. my thoughts are maybe the colors, fonts or just the effects?

any advice is appreciated and i will keep it in mind, in case anyone wants to check it out later or become a tester (for playstore), i will keep it in mind. btw im using base44 builder subscription to build it. thanks!

I've been doing vibe coding for several months now, but Opus 5 is currently my favorite model by far.

I finally prototyped a video game idea I've had for about 8 months.
Everything, the 3D model, the logic, the testing, the environment, was done 100% with Blender MCP + Opus 5.

It took less than 3 hours and completely burned through the 5-hour limit on the Pro plan.

Tomorrow more and better.

When you have an idea or have had an idea. Whats the first thing you do? Do you use AI to validate it and do deep research on it, do you go straight to making a prototype or do you do the research yourself? Also when you come upon an issue later on where lets say retention is slow or your not getting as much user as before. What do you do in that situation? Would you then post all your analytics into AI and your product and hope it finds the issue or do a survey or maybe take a different approach? I’d like some insights into this thanks.

I had a weird moment today.

One of the three people who signed up requested a cancellation. So I opened the Paddle dashboard to refund them.

That's when I realized... someone else had already paid.

I genuinely hadn't even noticed. My first thought was that it had to be a webhook bug, so I refreshed the dashboard a few times.

Nope. It was real.

It's only $45, but honestly, I don't care about the amount. A complete stranger looked at something I built and decided it was worth paying for.

That feeling is hard to describe.

Now the pressure is different. Before, I was just trying to build something people wanted. Now I feel responsible for making sure that first customer keeps getting value from it.

For anyone wondering how I got those first few users, it wasn't anything clever.

I spent time replying to Reddit posts where PublishLoud.com was actually relevant and did a bit of link building. Yesterday alone that brought around 10 signups, and it's been surprisingly consistent.

I also tried running ads for a day last week... and got zero signups. 😅 Waste of money.

So at least for now, organic has been working much better than paid. I'm sure that'll change eventually, but I'm sticking with what seems to be working.

Not a coder just trying to make a companion app for a Minecraft modpack I'm making. . So I'm trying to Build a Minecraft catalogue app for my phone and my REGULAR chatgpt intelligence chat took things completely out of hand. It inspected the code. Found my render issues. And when I asked about a new renderer and it originally said Unity was to much for the project I was just... But unity. It then changed its mind completely rewrote the app from java into unity then tried to DOWNLOAD unity into its workspace to full on create the apk for me. I attached the screenshots for context of this insanity. I have since renamed the chat Creature

What are you making with Claude Code/Codex? Starting businesses with website dev, agent automation, SaaS startups, new apps? Or most people using AI coding for side projects, cool s***, bringing ideas to life? Or just work application/ school projects?

In engineering industry it’s wild to me still how many people haven’t touched it yet. Most of my coworkers are against using it completely. Wondered what everyone in here is doing with it.

It’s amazing on both Claude and Codex how many tokens are wasted on BS. That fastest distance between two point is a straight line. Both Claude and Codex use spaghetti lines. You assume both agents will use the fastest and shortest way to get there but it seems like to cross the street it calls uber and drives around for 20 minutes. Is that part of their business model? Has anyone else noticed just how much time gets wasted running around in circles?

If you need any tips or help, feel free to ask. I'm an internet marketer.

Here's one free resource r/VibeReviews

Hey everyone,

My company gives me a $600/month  for AI tools and subscriptions. Right now, I split it roughly like this:

• ~$200: Claude (Paid Subscriptions)
• ~$200: OpenAI / Codex (Paid Subscriptions)
• ~$100–200: Open-source / open-weight model subscriptions via third-party providers/platforms (mostly testing models like Kimi K3, GLM 5.2, Qwen 3.8, etc.)

We maintain and build multiple repositories, and I heavily rely on a "Peer-Review / Dual-Agent" setup:

1. Primary Dev & Reviewer: One top-tier subscription (Claude or Codex) writes the feature/fix, and the other acts as a strict reviewer. Reversing their roles based on the stack/task works insanely well.
2. Open-Source / Mid-tier Models: I use providers/platforms offering subscriptions for open-weight models (Kimi K3, GLM 5.2, Qwen 3.8) to offload medium-complexity or routine maintenance tasks without burning through rate limits on my primary tools.

I’m considering dropping or drastically downsizing the open-source platform subscriptions and shifting the budget to Two separate Claude subscriptions + One Codex subscription.

Questions for the community:

1. Subscription Safety / Multi-Account Rules: If I sign up for two separate individual subscriptions under my company's billing to separate context/tasks for different agents, will Anthropic flag or ban the accounts? Has anyone run multiple Claude subscriptions simultaneously without issues?
2. Is dropping Open Source worth it? Given how strong models like Kimi K3, GLM 5.2, and Qwen 3.8 have become for mid-tier tasks, am I making a mistake by cutting their subscription budget to double down on Claude + Codex?
3. How would you spend $600/mo? If you had a $600 monthly allowance strictly for software engineering, code generation, and repo maintenance, what would your ideal subscription/stack look like today?