Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots 603: The product we are going to build
Feb 19, 2026
A team teases a new open Rails app generator built in the open with weekly livestreamed development. They debate readable, ejectable code, TDD-first test suites, and using Hotwire and Rails conventions. Conversation covers local containerized generation versus cloud, embedding product-discovery flows, cost and local AI model tradeoffs, and MVP form factors from CLI to desktop with live previews.
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Make Generated Code Ejectable
- Provide an ejectable codebase so users can take ownership and continue development in normal editors.
- Keep generated code readable and resilient to change to avoid forcing teams to start over.
Prototype Tools Miss Long-Term Needs
- Lovable targets prototypes and often lacks built-in security and long-term maintainability.
- ThoughtBot sees opportunity to provide stronger defaults and guardrails for production readiness.
Ship A Local Containerized App
- Ship a local desktop tool that runs a container so non-technical users don't need to install Ruby or Postgres.
- Use a containerized Rails dev environment to sandbox each generated app for safety.