Dive Into Vibe Coding: Building a Local Tech Events App for Toronto with Bolt

Motivation

Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot about AI tools that help developers build fully functional applications. Some can even generate entire codebases without writing a single line of code. As a developer, I’ve been using tools like ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot to speed up my workflow, but I hadn’t really explored platforms like Lovable or Bolt until recently.

One thing I’ve always wanted is an exhaustive list of tech meetups and events happening in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). So I went ahead and created one (link). Then I realized this was the perfect opportunity to dive deeper into AI-assisted development and try out what some are calling vibe coding. I decided to use Bolt to build a proper application around the idea.

Process

From Markdown to MVP

I started by writing a simple requirements note in Markdown. Here’s a simplified version of what I gave to Bolt:

## Features - V1
- List of tech meetups in GTA
    - Each item shows: name, logo, description
- Sections for meetups and non-meetup events based on the `type` field
    - Resources:
        - Meetup.com (scraping)
        - Toronto Ruby (own webpage - scraping)
        - Builder Sundays (own webpage - scraping)
### Logic
- JSON metadata:
    - url, platform (meetup/other), type (meetups/others)
- Scraping
    - Frequency: Daily
    - Database: Supabase
    - Fields: name, logo, description

I dropped this note into Bolt, and boom. Within seconds, I had a preview of a nearly complete app. The base structure and logic were already in place. I still had to adjust a few things: update the HTML selectors for scraping and configure Supabase to store our data. But after about three hours of chatting with Bolt (and occasionally asking ChatGPT for help), I had a working prototype.

Upcoming Events Page

Since then, I’ve added a dedicated page for upcoming events, including date and time information. Honestly, even counting the time spent on this new feature, I’m confident this app could be built in a couple of days.

That said, while these tools speed up development significantly, it’s still not quite easy for non-developers to build a fully functional application. Parts like configuring Supabase or writing scraping logic still require a bit of technical knowledge. But if you have some dev experience, these AI tools really do feel like magic.

Application

[embed]GTA Tech Meetups Discover tech meetups and events in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Join local tech communities, user…gta-dev-web.com

Techstack

• Frontend: React + TypeScript
• Build Tooling: Vite
• Styling: Tailwind CSS
• Backend / Database: Supabase
• Scraping: Cheerio, Puppeteer
• Hosting & Deployment: Vercel, GitHub Actions
• AI Tools Used: Bolt, ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot

Repository

[embed]GitHub - Sean0628/gta-dev-web: 🏙️ This repository aims to list all tech-related meetups, user… 🏙️ This repository aims to list all tech-related meetups, user groups, and similar communities happening in the…github.com

If you’re a developer curious about these AI tools or just want to experiment with building fast, lightweight apps, I’d definitely recommend giving Bolt a try.

And if you’re in the GTA and want to stay in the loop on local tech events. Well, now there’s an app for that!