#svelte
Cogito: Chasing a Dribbble-Worthy Microblogging App
Cogito is where I went looking for social media as eye candy — a microblogging app that could hold its own on Dribbble, not just function. It started years ago as React, a Node API gateway, and Go and Python microservices behind it, then sat unfinished for a long time. I finally came back to it.
The frontend is Svelte now. The backend is properly architected as microservices across Go and Rust, sitting behind an API gateway and talking gRPC internally, deliberately overengineered past what a hobby feed actually needs — building something complete and pretty was the whole goal.
The real focus this time was the design brief: spending real time in the UI/UX weeds — light and dark themes, reposts, hashtags, @mentions, hover and focus states, cover photos and avatars — until the feed felt like something worth screenshotting. That, plus the architecture itself, was where AI-assisted engineering did the most work: rounds with Claude and GPT on hierarchy, contrast, and service boundaries, instead of solo trial and error.
It's completely finished now — feed, profiles, reposts, notifications, search, the works — feature-complete, polished, and backed by infra and services built to actually scale.
Phasma: My Old Learning Project, Rebuilt Into a Full-Blown Production App
Phasma started years ago as the project I used to actually learn Angular, Node, Docker, and Kubernetes — the kind of throwaway app you build specifically to break things and figure out how they work. I just finished completely rewriting it, and it's not a throwaway anymore.
The stack is now Svelte on the frontend and Go on the backend, fully expanded with hashtags, @username support in posts, real search, and a complete modern glassmorphism redesign.
That first build taught me a stack. This one taught me something I'd never really practiced: AI-assisted engineering — working through UI/UX itself, hierarchy, contrast, spacing, motion, in rounds with Claude and GPT instead of framework docs. Different kind of learning project, same instinct to ship it once it actually worked.
It's gone from "thing I learn with" to a full-blown product — feed, profiles, likes, comments, notifications, the works — ready to delight with its visuals and scale with the infra powering it.