I Got Tired of Being a One-Man Dev Team (So I Built This Thing)

aka how I finally stopped mass-complaining about linter errors at 2am… mostly

Ok So Here’s the Thing

Its 3am. I’m so tired. Probably on my fifth coffee at this point, maybe sixth idk I lost count. Eyes are burning from staring at the screen. And I’ve been fighting with the SAME rubocop error for like an hour now.

You know the cycle right? Run rubocop. 3 errors. Fix them. Run again. Now its 2 different errors. Fix those. Run again. 5 ERRORS. HOW. I literally just fixed things and now theres MORE???

(I once spent 4 hours debugging something and it turned out I had a typo in a variable name. Four. Hours. I dont wanna talk about it.)

Anyway so I’m sitting there at 3am, questioning my life choices, and I’m thinking – wait. Didnt I become a developer to BUILD cool stuff? Not to fight with semicolons and copy paste Stack Overflow answers about “unexpected end of input”?

Thats basically why I made Buildmate. I got tired of doing everything myself lol.

What Is This Exactly

Ok so like… you know how in a real company you got different people doing different things:

Theres a developer who writes the code (and googles stuff constantly)
A tester who breaks everything (on purpose… hopefully)
Code reviewer who points out you forgot null checks again
Some PM who keeps everyone from losing their minds
Security person who tells you everything is wrong

Buildmate gives you all of these. But as AI agents. That actually talk to eachother and do stuff while you go get lunch or whatever.

Me: "/pm Build user authentication with OAuth"

Buildmate: "got it"

         → spawns a backend dev (writes the Rails code)
         → spawns frontend dev (does the React stuff)
         → spawns testers (writes tests, runs them)
         → runs linting in a loop until everything passes
         → actually RUNS the code to verify it works
         → fixes its own mistakes automatically
         → spawns reviewers (finds my mistakes)

Me: *drinking coffee* "nice"

I know it sounds wild. When I first got this working I didnt believe it either.

The Linter Loop From Hell (And How I Fixed It)

We’ve ALL been here:

$ rubocop
3 offenses detected

*fixes them carefully*

$ rubocop
2 offenses detected (different ones??)

*fixes those too*

$ rubocop
5 offenses detected

*stares at screen*
*questions existence*

I swear I’ve lost years of my life to this.

The fix: Theres this thing called the Grind Agent. It runs your linters in a loop and fixes stuff automatically. Until everythings green. Or until it gives up after 10 tries.

Grind Agent:
  Iteration 1: rubocop → 3 errors → fixing...
  Iteration 2: rubocop → 0 errors, nice
  Iteration 3: rspec → 2 failures → fixing...
  Iteration 4: rspec → all green

  Status: CONVERGED

  Fixed:
  - app/models/user.rb:15 - frozen_string_literal
  - spec/models/user_spec.rb:28 - nil vs empty string

You didnt do anything. It handled it.

“LGTM” Isnt Really a Code Review

Be real. When your tired and the PR has 47 files, “Looks Good To Me” really means “I looked at maybe 3 files and gave up.”

We all do it. Its human nature.

The fix: Theres an Eval Agent that scores your code with actual grades.

Thing	Weight	Score
Correctness	30%	0.85
Code Quality	25%	0.90
Security	20%	0.95
Performance	15%	0.80
Test Coverage	10%	0.75
Final		0.87 (B)

Actual numbers. No more arguing about tabs vs spaces. It tells you stuff like “line 47 might have an N+1 query” or “this method is doing 5 things, split it up.”

It Actually Tests Itself (This Is the Cool Part)

Most AI coding tools just write code and hope it works. You run it, it crashes, you spend 30 minutes debugging.

I got tired of that too.

So theres /verify. It actually RUNS your code:

Backend: Starts dev server, makes real HTTP requests, validates responses

Frontend: Opens a browser, navigates to your page, takes screenshots, checks if components render, looks for console errors

But heres the best part. If something fails? It fixes itself.

[Verification] Creating HeroSection...

[Testing]
- Starting dev server... ✓
- Looking for .hero-section...
- Component NOT FOUND ✗

[Analyzing]
- Component exists but not exported
- Adding export...

[Retry 1/3]
- Component found ✓
- No console errors ✓

Verification passed after 1 fix.

It built the component. Tested it. Found it wasnt exported. FIXED it. Tested again. All by itself.

Backend too:

[Verification] POST /api/users

- Making request...
- Status: 500 ✗

[Analyzing]
- Missing user_params method
- Adding to controller...

[Retry 1/3]
- Status: 201 Created ✓

Verification passed after 1 fix.

The stupid mistakes that take 20 minutes to debug? Gone.

Security (Actually Important)

Theres a Security Auditor agent. Checks OWASP stuff – injection attacks, auth problems, XSS, CSRF, etc.

## Security Report

Found: 2 issues

1. [MEDIUM] Possible SQL injection
   File: app/models/search.rb:45
   Fix: use parameterized query

2. [LOW] No rate limiting on login
   Suggestion: add rack-attack

Verdict: PASS WITH WARNINGS

I used to forget to check for this. Now it just happens.

How to Get Started

git clone https://github.com/vadim7j7/buildmate.git
cd buildmate
python3 -m venv .venv && .venv/bin/pip install -e .

# Bootstrap your project
buildmate rails /path/to/my-app
buildmate nextjs /path/to/app --ui=tailwind
buildmate rails+nextjs /path/to/app  # fullstack

# Or use a preset
buildmate --profile saas /path/to/app

Then:

/pm "Build user authentication"

And watch it work.

Commands Cheat Sheet

Command	What it does
`/pm "thing"`	Full workflow – plan, build, test, review
`/verify`	Actually runs your code to test it
`/verify --component Hero`	Test specific component
`/verify --endpoint /api/users`	Test specific endpoint
`/parallel "a" "b"`	Do multiple things at same time
`/new-model Name`	Create model + migration + spec + factory
`/new-component Name`	Create component + test
`/security`	Security audit
`/eval`	Score the code

The /verify one is new and honestly its my favorite now.

FAQ

“What if the AI makes mistakes?”

It will. But:

Verify agent RUNS your code and catches runtime errors
If something breaks, it fixes automatically (up to 3 times)
Grind agent catches lint/type errors
Eval agent scores it so you know if its good

Most AI tools just write code and pray. This one tests it.

“Will it work with my project?”

Yeah. It just creates a .claude/ folder. Doesnt touch your code unless you ask.

“What frameworks?”

Rails, Next.js, FastAPI, React Native. More coming.

Coming Soon: Website Cloning

Working on something kinda crazy:

/analyze-site https://some-cool-website.com
/clone-page https://some-cool-website.com/pricing

It will look at any website, extract the design, and generate YOUR code using YOUR UI library. See a landing page you like? Clone it.

Will write a whole post about it when its ready. Follow me so you dont miss it.

Try It

git clone https://github.com/vadim7j7/buildmate.git
cd buildmate
python3 -m venv .venv && .venv/bin/pip install -e .

buildmate rails /path/to/your-app
/pm "Build something cool"

Takes like 2 minutes.

Support This Thing

If Buildmate saved you from a 3am debugging session – maybe consider buying me a coffee?

☕ Buy Me A Coffee