Vibing a Non-Trivial Ghostty Feature
21 hours ago
- #macOS
- #SwiftUI
- #AI-assisted development
- Mitchell Hashimoto developed a non-trivial feature for Ghostty (unobtrusive macOS automatic updates) using AI.
- The feature was inspired by an incident where a Ghostty update interrupted a high-profile OpenAI keynote.
- The update notifications are designed to be non-modal and appear in the terminal window without disrupting the user's workflow.
- Hashimoto used AI to prototype the UI, which was later refined manually.
- The development process involved multiple AI sessions, cleanup phases, and manual interventions to ensure code quality.
- A significant bug was encountered during development, which required a pivot in the approach to placing update notifications.
- The backend was developed with AI assistance, but initial attempts were discarded due to suboptimal structuring.
- Simulation code was created to test various update scenarios, aiding in UX improvements.
- The total cost for AI sessions was $15.98, and the feature was developed over approximately 8 hours of focused work.
- Hashimoto emphasizes the importance of manual review before shipping AI-generated code.