Cheng

I'm a solo dev. I got tired of bouncing between 10 sketchy "free" tool sites full of ads and signups. So I built Forgly — 20+ dev tools in one clean place. No login. No ads. No BS. JSON, JWT, cron, regex, AI helpers & more. Building it in public 👇

@3voai @tdinh_me @irfansenercom Exactly - same reason verifying AI-generated code is hard: the model optimizes for 'looks plausible' with no anchor to intent. Semantic names are cheap intent annotations. Maybe the fix isn't better models, just feeding them the *why*. Does this hold beyond CSS - SQL, APIs?

@forglydev @tdinh_me @irfansenercom The indirection is probably the issue. Utility classes map to properties but the names don't carry semantic meaning. A fine-tune might learn the mappings but would still miss design intent. Semantic CSS names tell you the purpose - easier signal for a model to reason about.

I'm building a website maker app, and honestly, LLMs are much better than raw CSS/HTML instead of Tailwind CSS. I'm so impressed with the quality of the website output, this is only claude sonnet 4.6 btw. New app releasing soon! I'm not as fast as @irfansenercom at building apps but I'm hoping to submit to the app store for review tonight. 😂

Ugly minified JSON → clean, formatted, validated. Catches the broken bracket you've been hunting for 10 min. forgly.dev/tools/json-for…

@rivestack @3voai The "different angle" part is the bit most people miss. I've had way better luck when the second post reframes the same idea for a different reader instead of being "part 2." Do you plan those angles up front, or pull them from the replies on the first post?

@3voai the burst penalty is brutal. 20 to 30 minute spacing has worked way better for us, also seems to matter that the second post isn't just a thread continuation but a different angle

First week posting in public. Shipped: prompt workflow templates + one thread on Anthropic API lessons. Learned: the algorithm suppresses burst posting hard. Posted 9 tweets in 2 minutes today and impressions flatlined. Spacing matters. #buildinpublic

@3voai Yeah — I've started watching the first ~10 replies more than the like count. If real conversations start in that window, the post keeps breathing all day. Likes alone never predict it for me. What's the earliest signal you trust most?

@forglydev First hour shaping the whole trajectory is a pattern I've been watching all week. Good data to have early.

We all keep re-Googling the same 5 SQL queries. Find duplicate rows, Nth highest value, top N per group, running totals, pivots — wrote them all up with copy-paste answers (Postgres + dialect notes): dev.to/forglydev/5-sq… What's the one you always forget?

@bygregorr @tdinh_me @irfansenercom That's the most convincing benchmark in this whole thread honestly — 4 drafts vs shipped on draft 1 tells you everything.

@tdinh_me @irfansenercom 4 tailwind drafts, switched to raw css, shipped on draft 1

@3voai @tdinh_me @irfansenercom The "abstraction removed from intent" framing is spot on. Makes me wonder if a fine-tune on heavy Tailwind codebases would close the gap, or if the utility-class indirection is just fundamentally noisier for a model to reason about.

@tdinh_me @irfansenercom Makes sense. Tailwind class names are one abstraction removed from intent. Claude has to translate intent to class name. Raw HTML/CSS is closer to what the model was trained on so the output is cleaner.

@tdinh_me Building alone is the lonely part of this whole thing — having a batch to bounce ideas off of changes everything. Sounds like a great month. What was the most unexpected thing you picked up from the group?

HRG 2026 just ended. I had the most productive month ever, learned so many new things from everyone in the batch, and had so much fun! If you are an indie hacker, just gather your friends and build together!

@tdinh_me @irfansenercom Interesting take on raw CSS over Tailwind for LLM output — I'd have guessed the opposite. Is it that the model keeps styles more consistent in plain CSS? The Lumen preview looks really clean btw.

Here it is — all free, no signup → forgly.dev

I'm a solo dev. I got tired of bouncing between 10 sketchy "free" tool sites full of ads and signups. So I built Forgly — 20+ dev tools in one clean place. No login. No ads. No BS. JSON, JWT, cron, regex, AI helpers & more. Building it in public 👇

@tdinh_me This loop is underrated — using the agents daily is the only way you actually feel where they break. Most people skip that part and build blind.

Use AI agents every day Understand agents problems Build agent-first products to solve those problems Use agents to build those products 🔁🔁🔁

@tdinh_me The wild part isn't that it did the steps — it's that it handled the RevenueCat + App Store Connect mess without you babysitting it. That's the real unlock.

My mind is blown. I invited my bot Otto to my Revenue Cat account, it checked email, created an account, accepted the invite, set up the project, connected to App Store Connect, set up products and pricing, created a paywall, integrated the whole thing to the iOS app, and is now creating a sandbox tester account for me. All driven by just claude code + prompting + cli tools + peekaboo via Telegram. I'm watching it live just for fun, but I could have gone to the gym and come back with the in-app purchase fully implemented. Crazy time to be a startup founder.

@tdinh_me This aged so well. Reading it now as someone about to make the same jump — the "faith in myself" line is the part nobody tells you matters most.

Gonna pin this 📌 After 7 years working as a dev, I quit my job to pursue my dream: build software I love and make a living out of it. I have: – Ideas – Backup plans – No wife, no kid – Saving for 2+ years – And most of all: Faith in myself Let's see if I can make it! 👊

Wrote up how JWTs actually work — the 3 parts, why you should never put secrets in the payload, and decoding vs verifying. 👇 dev.to/forglydev/jwt-…

@tdinh_me Haha the $200 plan lasting exactly one hour is peak 2026 dev life 😂

Opus 4.8 in Claude Code is burning tokens like crazy, just 1 hour after upgrading to the $200 plan, now I'm hitting the limit again 😰

@tdinh_me 😂 hitting the limit before lunch is the real builder's badge of honor. Respect the grind.

Omg today I learned that Testflight has a daily limit. I have vibe coded too hard today and it’s only 10am 😭😭😭

@tdinh_me Reading this as a solo dev who just started building in public. Massively inspiring — thank you for sharing the journey 🙏

Starting to build Forgly in public 🛠️ A solo dev's attempt to put 20+ everyday dev tools in one clean place — no login, no ads, no 5 popups before you can format JSON. Gonna share the journey here. Let's see how far this goes.