Building this site with AI was going perfectly. Right up until the moment my AI coding assistant, Goose AI, deleted the entire project with a single prompt.

It’s been an interesting process, to say the least.

My “tech stack” for this project was Astro, Goose AI (an AI coding agent), and Gemini as the underlying LLM. For the most part, the experience was fantastic. The AI performed really well, and the site was nearly complete.

Then, disaster struck. I entered one final prompt, and… Goose trashed the entire site. Everything was gone. It was a painful, reminder of the oldest and most important lesson in tech: always back up your work.

After rebuilding it (and keeping backups), I checked the damage. The total cost of creating the site twice appears to be about $52 in API calls. I can’t be 100% sure every cent is from this project, as I’ve used that API key in a few places, but I know for a fact that the vast majority of the usage was from Goose.

Here’s the thing: $52 for a custom site built to my exact specs, all without me having to write the code? I’d call that a great deal.

Sure, I have the skills to have coded it all myself, but I’m not sure I would have had the momentum to actually finish it. Using AI gave me the boost I needed to see it through.

That alone was worth the cost of the API calls. Overall, I’m calling this a major success. I’m really happy with the results.

Here’s an early preview of some monster drawings I’ve been working on. I was inspired by Chris Piascik’s tutorial on his “Weirod Drawing Hack” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnsv1JFqd48), and I’m using his technique to create a short, looping animation of a monster morphing into different creatures.

It was a really fun way to use my Galaxy S10 tab for some art. I found the process surprisingly low-stakes and fun, mostly because I knew each drawing would only be on screen for a moment. That loosened me up and made me more willing to make mistakes, which I think led to more interesting characters. It also forced me to iterate, and iterating always leads to better end results! I’ll post it on the site sometime in the future.

I’m tired of posting my work into someone else’s ecosystem—giving them rights to my content by default and allowing them to advertise all over my creations. So, I guess I’m going back to that early 2000s way of posting and building my own space. Here’s to a new site and some new creations!”