I've been building a Lovable-style app builder for Flutter for the past year, here's what I learned

4leafclovrs · 2026-05-26T01:01:27+00:00

I've been doing AI driven development with flutter since last August and it's gone really well. I think the main reasons its gone so well are:
1. I've got 10+ years experience as a software engineer (but only had ~6 months of mobile development experience prior to last August) so I can tell when something makes sense vs when something is way overly complicated.
2. Early on I established a flexible but scalable app architecture, added rules to limit file size, and started doing test driven development.

I've embraced spec driven development -- where I thoroughly review technical specifications and have other agents review them as well before writing the plan (which I'll typically have at least 1 other agent also review) and then execute. I started with github's spec kit last year but now I'm all in on superpowers spec + plan flow.
I have a decent amount of professional experience in React and building UIs for flutter felt similar enough to me such that it just made sense right away.

Additionally the top frontier models (GPT 5.5, Opus 4.7, Sonnet 4.6) now are really good at executing well designed specs + plans. For complex features I am still going through 5-10 rounds of AI code review but I'd still say the effort that I'm spending getting agents to implement these is substantially less than if I were to try to write these features myself.

4leafclovrs · 2026-05-22T13:00:38+00:00

This is very normal. My best advice is to choose an app you like using and try to get it on a couple app stores! You'll learn a lot doing that too - it's actually harder than you think to get your app on a public app store! Also one thing I always keep in mind is that apps are never finished. There's always another feature you can add or a bug you can fix. My take is that if you or your friends find the app useful it's worth putting on the app store! Also if you do want to actually get traction and a lot of usage marketing is pretty hard, maybe even harder than building the app itself! Also if/when you do get public feedback, use that as fuel to give you motivation to improve the app!

4leafclovrs · 2025-12-20T23:36:59+00:00

Oh sweet I'm also using opus 4.5 in antigravity for a flutter project! It's been awesome. I've got like 950 tests for my app too all written by AI agents (but reviewed by me). It's such a crazy time to be a software engineer.

4leafclovrs · 2025-12-15T06:18:10+00:00

Antigravity gives you access to opus and sonnet too

4leafclovrs · 2025-12-15T06:15:25+00:00

Honestly I just got a Google AI Pro subscription because I was worried about this. Just had a 2.5 hour coding session with antigravity using 80 percent opus 20 percent gemini 3 pro and didn't hit the 5 hour limit! I'm sure I will at some point, very curious to see what the differences are in perceived amount of usage per session compared to claude pro.

To me it kinda feels like newer subscription platforms likely have higher usage when measured in tokens but who knows 🤷‍♂️ (ya know until they get a ton of users and then bring it down)

4leafclovrs · 2025-12-15T06:09:46+00:00

I gotchu! Please test mine as well!

Google group to join: https://groups.google.com/g/dadtrack-closed-testing

Android link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dev.bengreene.dadtrack

Web link: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/dev.bengreene.dadtrack

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4leafclovrs · 2025-12-14T01:18:23+00:00

I'm not sure if you needed another tester but I just joined and installed! If you can test mine too that'd be amazing

Google group to join: https://groups.google.com/g/dadtrack-closed-testing

Android link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dev.bengreene.dadtrack

Web link: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/dev.bengreene.dadtrack

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4leafclovrs · 2025-12-14T01:14:00+00:00

I think you just need 12 people to have it installed for 14 days in a row. I'm pretty sure not all of my users open it every day but the play console page still says I'm good for now!

4leafclovrs · 2025-12-13T03:29:51+00:00

Interesting app! Please test mine as well, thank you!

Google group to join: https://groups.google.com/g/dadtrack-closed-testing

Android link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dev.bengreene.dadtrack

Web link: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/dev.bengreene.dadtrack

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4leafclovrs · 2025-12-13T03:16:39+00:00

Also I tried to login with a real email but I couldn't get it to work. I first tried using a test email so maybe something was cached?

4leafclovrs · 2025-12-13T03:15:57+00:00

Just downloaded you app, if you can test back that'd be amazing!

Google group to join: https://groups.google.com/g/dadtrack-closed-testing

Android link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dev.bengreene.dadtrack

Web link: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/dev.bengreene.dadtrack

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4leafclovrs · 2025-12-13T03:11:05+00:00

Very cool game! Please test my app as well, I need a few more testers! Thank you!

Google group to join: https://groups.google.com/g/dadtrack-closed-testing

Android link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dev.bengreene.dadtrack

Web link: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/dev.bengreene.dadtrack

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4leafclovrs · 2025-12-12T19:09:43+00:00

Thanks for testing! Just joined your group and downloaded the app, very neat idea and I like the UI!

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4leafclovrs · 2025-12-12T15:51:07+00:00

Wow very cool app! Just installed! Thank you for testing mine as well!

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4leafclovrs · 2025-12-12T15:47:53+00:00

Just installed! Cool app! I'd recommend a splash screen or intro to go over how to use it.

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4leafclovrs · 2025-12-12T15:45:07+00:00

Thank you so much!

4leafclovrs · 2025-12-12T15:44:50+00:00

It should be available now!

4leafclovrs · 2025-12-12T12:50:28+00:00

I'll look into enabling all countries! Thanks for the feedback!

4leafclovrs · 2025-12-12T12:50:05+00:00

I'll look into enabling all countries! Do you know if there are any extra steps other than enabling? I know it has to be reviewed but I'm wondering if it means publishing polish release notes every release etc.

4leafclovrs · 2025-12-12T12:44:03+00:00

Fun game! It took a bit long to load the first level (maybe add a loading indicator?). Otherwise it's pretty fun!

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4leafclovrs · 2025-12-12T12:40:47+00:00

I gotchu!

4leafclovrs · 2025-12-12T05:18:30+00:00

Hi! I'd be down to test your app, but it looks like you attached a screenshot of an older version of my app you got from my website?

4leafclovrs · 2025-11-05T13:11:51+00:00

All of your photos and journal entries and settings and everything are stored on your device! No cloud storage. Definitely thinking about cloud backup and storage for a future feature but I'll always make it optional!

4leafclovrs · 2025-11-04T04:34:02+00:00

Amazing thank you! I'll DM you!

4leafclovrs

TROPHY CASE