From AI-theist to Bolt-Lievers: The Story Behind hegrid.site

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Budi Gunawan

This is a submission for the World’s Largest Hackathon Writing Challenge: Building with Bolt.

At first, I was an AI-theist (skeptical, dismissive, allergic) to the endless hype around artificial intelligence. I preferred the old way which is writing every line of code by hand, designing every pixel myself, and keeping full control. Then I saw @buildinpublic on X promoting the World’s Largest Hackathon held by Bolt.new, and everything changed. An experiment turned into an idea. That idea turned into a real tool. And that tool became Hegrid.

What is Hegrid

Hegrid is an online tool that can slice an image into multiple grids based on the selected layout (3×1, 3×2, 3×3, … 3xn) and aspect ratio (1:1 or 4:5). Users can then download individual tiles or multiple tiles as a ZIP file. They can also view the processed images on the history page and share a link that displays a preview of all the slices in the chosen grid layout.

Why I Built Hegrid

In my organization, I’m part of the media and communication team, which means I also manage our social media accounts. Like many organizations, we aim to create visually appealing Instagram feeds with consistent themes. Every time I want to post new content, I have to design and split the image using Illustrator. But sometimes, I just need to split an image without doing any design work and opening Illustrator feels like a waste of time, especially since it loads so slowly on my laptop. After splitting the image, I also have to post it myself because it’s difficult to assign the posting order to my team. I end up sending the image slices one by one to my team. That’s what inspire me to create a tool like Hegrid to split images effortlessly and make it easier to assign and share posting tasks.

How We Built It

We built it using the HTML Canvas API to crop images into multiple grids, and we store the data and images in Supabase. This allows users to view their processing history and access a shareable public preview page. I also created a webhook using a Supabase Edge Function to receive pings from Gumroad, which are used to toggle the user’s free or pro plan status.

How Bolt.new Changed My Approach to Development

I used to see AI as a threat to creativity. Now, I see it as a game changer. Bolt didn’t replace my skills. It helped me build my MVP faster.

With Bolt’s help, I don’t need to worry about the setup, I just need to test, iterate, and focus on the parts that actually mattered which are the user experience, the shareability, the fun of seeing an idea work in the wild.

Challenges

Every app development definitely has its own challenges. The challenge I faced during this development was matching the logic flow in my mind with the logic generated by Bolt. I had to polish my prompts and give clear instructions to adjust the logic. I also had to be careful when making changes because I didn’t want to break features that were already working.

Challenges also came from the payment method. The problem was my country – Indonesia, is not listed in Stripe’s supported countries. This meant I couldn’t use RevenueCat Web, since it requires Stripe. So, I did more research and chose Gumroad as the global payment alternative.

Another challenge I faced was creating a webhook in a Supabase Edge Function to handle successful or failed payment. At first, I was really confused because the webhook didn’t trigger the database function. Then, I checked Supabase logs and found that there was a line in the webhook that prevented my database function from being triggered.

I asked for help in the Bolt chat discussion and showed Bolt the logs. Finally, Bolt suggested some fixes and asked whether to implement the plan automatically or not. Sometimes I let Bolt implement the plan and sometimes I fixed it directly in the code editor. That’s what makes me love Bolt even more.

Favorite Things in This Hackathon

I don’t have any favorite code snippets or prompts. But in this section, I want to share that my favorite part of this hackathon was the Bolt chat discussion feature.

I was given the freedom to choose whether to let Bolt implement the plan automatically or to fix it by myself. I felt like I could learn something too by discussing with Bolt. Bolt explained the solutions step by step including which files were being changed. By using the Bolt chat discussion feature, I can save more tokens and gain more knowledges.

What’s Next for hegrid

Next, I’m planning to add a couple of features, such as:

1. An Instagram post scheduler for each grid slice
2. Editable grid slices for content posts

Hegrid is still evolving and so am I. I’m learning that you have to try it first before judging it. Do not just believe, but investigate. Do not simply accept what you hear or you see, not even if it is uttered by me. That’s why I’m proud to say I’m no longer an AI-theist. I’m a Bolt-liever.

You can check out my app at hegrid.site

This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Budi Gunawan