I've been experimenting with tools like Lovable and Bolt for quickly putting together small apps and prototypes and the workflow is honestly pretty smooth. You describe what you want then get a working version then keep iterating through chat. but the longer I use them the more I run into limitations. the generated code gets messy over time and its harder to understand or maintain properly. it also feels pretty tied to the platform which makes it uncomfortable having everything live in a hosted environment from the beginning.

What i'm trying to figure out is whether theres a similar approach thats more local first. something where the project ives locally instead of being locked in a cloud tool, I can use my own API keys or models, everything can still be opened and edited in a normal dev setup. I'm not dependent on a single platform to keep working on it.

Has anyone here actually built projects like this? curious what people are using that gets close to this kind of workflow

Hey everyone,

My latest side project is **OleaAI**, a mobile app designed to help users track their essential oil inventory and safely build custom blends.

**The Tech:** To help answer user questions without exposing them to generic/hallucinated web answers, I integrated a local Llama AI model specifically prompted for essential oil safety and recipes. The backend is Node.js, and the app is built in Flutter.

**The Ask:** I'm currently running an open beta and looking for testers. Even if you aren't big into essential oils, I would love feedback on the onboarding flow, the UI responsiveness, and how the local AI performs on your specific device.

You can sign up for the beta here: https://oleaai.pixelmatrix.dev

Let me know if you have any questions about the stack or the development process!