Skip to content

REFLECTION.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
23 lines (18 loc) · 2.27 KB

REFLECTION.md

File metadata and controls

23 lines (18 loc) · 2.27 KB
Raw

REFLECTION

1. Hardest bug and how I debugged it

The hardest bug was the "Deployment Drift." Locally, the app worked perfectly with SQLite, but on Vercel, every shared audit link returned a 404. I initially thought it was a Prisma generation issue. I debugged it by adding detailed logging to the API routes, which revealed that the SQLite file was either missing or read-only in the serverless environment. This led to the major realization that a traditional DB was overkill for a tool where the input is small enough to be stateless.

2. A decision I reversed mid-week

I originally planned to use Prisma + Postgres for all persistence. However, mid-week I reversed this and moved to a Stateless Base64 encoding for Audit IDs. Reasoning: For a free audit tool, the friction of managing a database and connection pooling was high. By encoding the audit data into the ID itself, I made the app 100% available, simplified the architecture, and ensured that shared reports never "expire" or get lost due to DB migrations.

3. What I would build in week 2

In week 2, I would focus on Benchmark Data. I would aggregate the (anonymous) stateless data to show users how their spend compares to other teams of the same size. "You are in the top 10% of spenders for a 10-person team" is a very powerful hook for conversion. I would also add a "Browser Extension" to automatically pull plan data from vendor dashboards.

4. How I used AI tools

I used AI (Gemini) for two distinct purposes:

  1. Product Feature: Generating the "100-word personalized summary." This adds a premium, high-touch feel to a deterministic audit.
  2. Development: I used AI to refactor the Audit Engine logic and to help design the "Stateless" encoding scheme. It was particularly helpful in identifying edge cases in the "Research Consolidation" rule.

5. Self-rating (1-10) with reasons

  • Discipline: 9 — Followed the plan and maintained a daily log.
  • Code quality: 9 — Clean, type-safe implementation with a robust stateless design.
  • Design sense: 8 — Used a sleek, finance-grade zinc/emerald palette.
  • Problem solving: 10 — Pivoted to stateless architecture to solve the deployment blocker.
  • Entrepreneurial thinking: 9 — Focused on lead capture and the "Credex" value prop throughout.