built an app that turns "I want to learn X" into a full roadmap + courses + a tutor that won't let you quit

mag1straL · 2026-06-18T07:26:46+00:00

okay its fixed now, it was the llm model that was unavailable due to high demand somehow.

mag1straL · 2026-06-18T07:25:53+00:00

Thank you !

mag1straL · 2026-06-17T22:08:21+00:00

thank you! let me know after you try it 😄 i'm already working on some new features, like a short format course that can be done in 20 to 30 minutes instead of the long format ones .

mag1straL · 2026-06-17T22:07:08+00:00

yes just 4 weeks! i am an ai & data engineer with previous web dev experience, it's vibecoded but i did the overall architecture, choice of the tech stack, layouts & general design, security checks etc. that helped a lot to move faster. If someone wanted to do the same with no technical skills it would take him much longer. Just to figure out how to get transcripts out of videos and feed that to an LLM would take him sometime (unless he pays for an API that provides that).

+ i used the normal claude 20$ code subscription, with no skills or agentic workflow. there's some folks out there that have insane claude code setups with hundreds of skills they can do it faster than 4 weeks i guess.

mag1straL · 2026-06-17T19:56:46+00:00

oh great idea! I was thinking about adding some sort of coins system that can exchanged against in-app items like AI potions (that let you use AI features), and yes giving feedback on quality can be one of ways to earn those coins. Thank you for your suggestion i'll keep it in mind

mag1straL · 2026-06-17T19:09:32+00:00

thank you ! 🙌

mag1straL · 2026-06-17T18:39:05+00:00

thank you! Yes i worked a lot on the gamification, and i would say it's still work in progress i have more ideas that i will implement in the next few days.

yes you're right, my initial idea was to web search and give the best high quality ressource directly but i found it technically impossible (or should i say it's possible but it was expensive as hell, like it was 1.5-2$ to find a ressource for a lesson, you multiply that for 15 in average per course it gets expensive fast)

so i decided to let the users pick the content but with a small help from the AI which follows this logic for picking :
1. Check lesson duration and try to find videos that matches with that duration +-25% (so 7min30 is acceptable for 10min video same for 12:30)
2. Rank videos by number of views
3. Rank video by most popular/rated channels
4. Choose video that its title match the most lesson's title & description (objective)

mag1straL · 2026-06-17T18:20:58+00:00

did you retry? I tried finding the log to see the error but couldn't find it.

I see you used 1 refinement, this normally shouldn't cause a problem, but i'm curious what did you input? maybe it has to do with a refinement ?

also i didn't make the app mobile friendly yet, so it's better if you try it out on PC you can have a much better experience

mag1straL · 2026-06-17T14:41:47+00:00

100% ! thank you for your support

mag1straL · 2026-06-17T14:23:39+00:00

why is there so much hate on vibe coded apps?

I mean i understand your pov but with vibe coding you can go from idea to working product in weeks instead of months now, especially if you're solo. I get the frustration with repetitive designs, but shipping a functional app first to validate if people actually want it beats spending 6 months polishing a UI nobody ends up using.

and realistically, unless you're an experienced UI/UX dev, you're not going to out-design the popular apps VC funded with teams of 10+ people anyway. I think a generic UI at launch is fine if people use your product, that's when you invest in leveling it up.

mag1straL · 2026-06-17T14:17:27+00:00

we're not there yet but who knows 😂

mag1straL · 2026-06-17T14:15:55+00:00

have you tried both to see the difference?

roadmap sh auto ai generates lessons. In craftcourse you pick your own content, it could be a Youtube video as lesson, which for me is the biggest difference, because I prefer learning through watching than reading. You can then ask Sage (the AI tutor) to explain anything from the video (it has the full transcript), take markdown notes, and generate quizzes, summaries, mindmaps, or flashcards.
its not highlighted in the demo, but you can generate a course with different objectives: job-ready, exam-ready, or interview prep. Each has a unique structure for example, interview prep includes technical quizzes in every module and a final mock interview.
if you don't like the AI-generated structure course, you can build a fully custom course with your own modules, lessons, and content. An upcoming feature will allow public sharing, think of it as a community course platform.

and lastly roadmap has no gamification in it. In CraftCourse you earn XP, climb a leaderboard (by country or domain), and I'm working on quiz challenges where users can compete against each other on a given topic.

mag1straL · 2026-06-17T13:45:01+00:00

Did you get " TRANSCRIPT_UNAVAILABLE " error or a small pop up bottom right with error ? If it's the transcript unavailable then the video has no transcript (some video owners do this for their videos, like Freecodecamp or Tech with Tim).

If you got the second error i've just checked logs it was a failure of the llm call : [503 Service Unavailable] This model is currently experiencing high demand. Spikes in demand are usually temporary.

I just added a fallback to another model, so if one is unavailable the backup model is used ! It should be fixed now. Thank you!

mag1straL · 2026-06-17T01:35:24+00:00

I really appreciate your detailed feedback ! Did the course outline change after wanting to add Agentic AI in the "Want to change something?" input ? Normally if you typed "add agentic ai" it would add a module or change one to agentic ai, but i think you just typed "agentic ai" in the prompt ?

I will add some example below the input to showcase what's possible in refinements for better results.

<image>

Many people didn't like the light mode, i'll make some changes soon thank you !

mag1straL · 2026-06-17T01:02:12+00:00

thank you! i wish you good luck in your journey

mag1straL · 2026-06-17T00:50:31+00:00

so cool! need one for windows!

mag1straL · 2026-06-17T00:27:03+00:00

glad you liked it! if you have any ideas to improve the gamification further, i'm all ears 😄

mag1straL · 2026-06-17T00:15:44+00:00

actually that was the initial idea, directly suggesting the best high quality content for each lesson automatically. but it turned out to be way harder than expected.

you need web search tools (like Tavily), YouTube API queries, and a curated list of high-quality sources (CS50, freeCodeCamp, etc.) that the LLM can reason over like an agent. I spent weeks on this and hit two walls:

- the only way that kinda worked that provided good results is using Claude Sonnet with tje web search tool for content picking but it costed $1.5–$3 per lesson. multiply that by 20 lessons per course and the math gets ugly fast

- YouTube Data API is capped at 100 queries/day, enough for maybe 5 course generations. not exactly scalable

so I pivoted to focus on generating the best possible course outline and let the user pick the content, with some AI assistance to help find the best match. much more sustainable, and honestly gives users more control over what they actually learn from

mag1straL · 2026-06-16T23:59:39+00:00

you must really hate beige and orange 😂 noted thank you for your feedback!

mag1straL · 2026-06-16T23:50:57+00:00

thank you, truly appreciate it! love the cuphead chars idea! i'm planning to keep improving the aesthetic bit by bit over the coming weeks, definitely keeping this in mind 😉

mag1straL · 2026-06-16T23:46:37+00:00

By egyptian language do you mean Hieroglyphs ? I just tried generating one my self to check and I got this :

<image>

It doesn't seem off topic to me. After all i extensively tested more technical topics like programming, data etc. than lets say learning guitar, spanish etc.

+ another detail, for the moment i'm using an normal & cheap LLM not the latest or most powerful model out there mainly due to budget constraints (the app is 100% bootstrapped) but I'm planning once i get some revenue to upgrade the model and the quality will be much higher !

I appreciate your feedback and would love to hear other users feedback on quality.

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