Welcome back to the AI Edge weekly newsletter!
This week, we’re covering vibe coding - and how to build your first app with AI.
Vibe coding has completely changed the world, and literally anyone can ship fully-functioning code in minutes.
By the end of this publication, you'll be on your way to building your first app with AI.
Whether you want to build something for yourself or ship a consumer product, the barrier has never been lower - and this guide will walk you through the four steps to deploy a working prototype in <15 minutes.
After our main anchor piece, be sure to stick around for the Midweek Edge, where we recap the top AI news from the past week, and our Looking Ahead section, where we break down top AI trends & research.
Enjoy!
Building your first app with AI comes down to 4 crucial steps:
Picking the right tool
Planning
Prompting + building
Iteration/deploying
Let’s walk through each of these steps (for complete beginners)
Step One: Picking the right tool
There are three vibe coding tools worth knowing right now.
Each one has a different strength depending on what you're building and how technical you want to get.
Claude Code (beginner)
If you’ve never vibe-coded an app before, you’ll want to use Claude Code as your tool of choice. You can run Claude Code straight from your terminal or desktop app.
Codex by OpenAI (best all-rounder)
Codex is hands-down the best AI vibe-coding tool available right now. It’s extremely good at executing long-running builds without babysitting each step.
If you have at least some AI experience, we recommend using Codex for your first app (GPT-5.5 in particular)
3. Antigravity by Google
Antigravity is best for developers or people with at least some technical experience (even just vibe coding experience will suffice).
Antigravity just launched 2.0 yesterday at Google I/O, and it's the most powerful of the three tools. It orchestrates multiple AI agents simultaneously (one plans, one codes, one tests, one checks the UI), and ships production-ready apps with Firebase backend integration built in.
Of course, you have other tools like Cursor, Grok Build, etc., but these are the three tools we recommend for your first vibe-coded app.
Complete beginner? Pick Claude Code
Want the best all-rounder that “just works”? Pick Codex
Want to build the most powerful app possible? Pick Antigravity
Once you have your tool of choice, you’ll want to move to the planning portion of your development:
Step Two: Planning your app (the basics)
The biggest mistake first-time vibe coders make is jumping straight into prompting without a plan.
Most of your time should go into the planning phase of your build, as it saves you a ton of time/money down the road.
Before you write a single prompt, answer these four questions:
What does it do?
Who is it for? (A personal tool has different requirements than a consumer product)
What are the core features?
What does it look like?
For the actual planning phase of your app, you can use any LLM to help you build a full technical blueprint before you touch a single tool. Paste your answers to the four questions above and use this prompt:
"I want to build an app. Here is my brief: [paste your answers]. Based on this, I want you to create a full planning document that includes: a one-sentence app description, a full list of core features broken into must-haves and nice-to-haves, a suggested tech stack for a beginner vibe coder, a basic file and folder structure, a list of potential problems or edge cases I should plan for, and a step-by-step build order so I know exactly what to tackle first. Flag anything that seems unclear or underdeveloped in my brief before we start."This gives you a technical blueprint you can hand directly to your vibe coding tool in Step 3.
Pro Tip: If you’re using Claude Code, use /plan mode
With your plan in hand, Step 3 is where the magic actually happens:
Step Three: Prompting + Building
Open your tool of choice and paste your planning document as your first prompt. Don't start with a vague request - lead with the full brief. The more context your tool has upfront, the less you'll need to correct later.
Final prompting format:
A few rules to follow as you build:
Build one feature at a time. Don't ask for everything at once. Give the AI one feature, test it, confirm it works, then move to the next.
Be specific about what you want. Vague prompts produce vague results. If something isn't right, don't just say "fix this" - describe exactly what's wrong and what you expected instead (trust us, taking a few minutes to send a good prompt will save you so much time/money in token costs & wasted time).
Don't skip testing. Click through every feature as it gets built. Catching a problem at feature two is far easier than untangling it down the track.
Some last building tips:
You can take UI/UX features from other websites/apps and have your tool reverse-engineer them for your app.
Run occasional “security audits” in which the AI cleans up bugs, errors, and security risks.
Once you have a working prototype of your app, move on to step four:
Step Four: Iteration + Deployment
Your first prototype won't be perfect (that's not a problem).
The iteration phase is your chance to fix broken components.
Something looks off? Describe it and ask your AI to fix it. A feature isn't working how you expected? Tell it exactly what you wanted and what you got instead. The back-and-forth is fast, and each round brings you closer to the finished product.
A few iteration rules:
One change at a time. Don't stack five fixes into one prompt. Fix one thing, test it, then move to the next.
Describe the problem, not just the fix. Instead of "change the button color," say "the confirm button blends into the background and is hard to see - make it stand out more." Context and an explanation of WHY the feature is broken produce better results.
Once your app is working the way you want, it's time to deploy. Each tool handles this differently:
Claude Code - deploy via Netlify or Vercel with a single command
Codex - export your project and deploy to your host of choice (Vercel is best)
Antigravity - built-in one-click deploy to Google Cloud Run or export to Canva, PDF, or standalone HTML
Congrats - your first app is live!
There you have it.
The exact four-step process we follow to build ALL the apps shown on the AI Edge YouTube channel.
Use this for: habit trackers, personal OS apps - and anything else you could think of!
Now, let’s jump into the Midweek Edge - our manually curated list of only the most important AI updates to ensure you stay up to speed.
🚨 Google I/O Is Underway🚨
Google I/O is happening as we speak - and Google is revealing a TON of new AI features.
Some new Google AI features we’re excited about:
Google Spark - 24/7 AI agent is coming soon (OpenClaw/Hermes competitor)
Gemini 3.5 Flash - Google’s strongest agentic coding model is live in Gemini now
Google Omni - Media generation & editing model (video, audio)
Antigravity 2.0 - Massive upgrades to Antigravity 2.0 (desktop app)
Google Flow Music - Create AI music directly in the Gemini app
Super exciting stuff - expect even more Google AI announcements later today!
🚨Grok Build LIVE Now🚨
xAI just launched Grok Build - a way to bring Grok directly into your desktop terminal!
A direct competitor to tools like Antigravity, Codex & Claude Code.
Here's how to set it up in 30 seconds:
Right plan
Make sure that you're on the SuperGrok Heavy plan (currently only available to subscribers)
Install
Run this command in your terminal
"curl -fsSL https://x.ai/cli/install.sh | bash"
Start a session
bash
"grok [enter prompt]."
Done - start building!
🚨Grok Skills LIVE now🚨
Grok Skills are live now (similar to Claude Skills).
Available for SuperGrok members now
(Grok Skills cheatsheet):
🚨OpenAI & Sam Altman WIN trial against Elon Musk🚨
Sam Altman & OpenAI WIN lawsuit against Elon Musk.
For weeks, Musk argued that Sama converted OpenAI into a for-profit, which went against OpenAI's founding values.
The defense argued Elon was fine with a for-profit until he left.
The case was dismissed as Musk filed too late.
🚨Andrej Karpathy Joins Anthropic 🚨
Former Tesla AI executive and OpenAI founding member just joined the Anthropic team.
Read the announcement here:
🚨Claude Design DOUBLE Usage Limits🚨
Rate limits just DOUBLED inside Claude Design! Enjoy!
Looking Ahead - The top AI trends, leaks, and news we’re closely monitoring.
👀 Google I/O LAST Day 👀
Google I/O ends today!
The last livestream for all Google updates happens at 10 am PST today (watch on @Google on X or YouTube).
👀Massive Shift Towards Agentic AI 👀
As discussed in previous publications, we’re seeing a massive shift towards agentic AI.
With all the recent updates from Google, it’s clear that major AI companies are only focusing more and more on AI tools that “do work” for you.
We expect this trend to continue, so expect to see more “OpenClaw” like tools in your daily AI tools (Anthropic is probably next to launch an OpenClaw competitor).
👀 SpaceX IPO Update 👀
SpaceX IPO is now expected on June 12.
Here’s a full overview of the current SpaceX ecosystem:
👀Higgsfield Supercomputer Release 👀
Higgsfield just released Supercomputer.
A cloud-native AI agent that unifies every model, tool, and creative workflow into one system.
It can research, write, design, generate video, and ship campaigns end-to-end.
Expect to see our content on this tool soon!
Final Thoughts
If you made it this far, thank you for reading, and we hope you found this week’s edition valuable.
If you did, please share this with someone who you think would benefit from our publication.💙 Our promise to you: Every Wednesday, at 7 am EST, we’ll cut through the AI noise and send you human-curated AI content, tool guides, workflows, and more to make sure you stay ahead of the AI curve - straight to your inbox and 100% free. |
Recent & upcoming content:
YouTube Content
Live Now: “I Ranked Every AI Tool (May 2026)”
X (Twitter) Content
Live Now: “How I Turned Claude Into My Personal Assistant”
Upcoming Content: “5 Dangerously Powerful Claude Hacks” (live in a few hours)!
Instagram Community & Free AI assets
Live Now: Full PDF Playbook for building a personal OS app with Claude Code👇
For all the AI prompts, cheatsheets, and PDF guides mentioned on the AI Edge YouTube channel, grab them by joining Miles’ free Instagram community here: |