Article summary
As part of Atomic’s Accelerator program, a few of us were given a fun challenge: build something in an hour using a tool we’d never touched before. Enter Bolt, a new UI framework that generates React code from plain English prompts. Think: “What if ChatGPT just started coding your front end for you?”
Bolt promises to speed up the process of spinning up prototypes and simple apps. You describe what you want in a prompt — layout, behavior, components — and Bolt handles the scaffolding, giving you real React code you can build on top of.
What We Built
Our team set out to build a meal suggestion app: enter a list of ingredients, and it suggests a dish. Think of it as a helpful assistant for those “I have tortillas, beans, and half a lemon… now what?” moments.
Other groups went in different directions — one built a game, another started a productivity tool. All of us had different visions, but we shared one thing in common: discovering how Bolt interprets prompts can feel a bit like playing 20 Questions with a developer who’s just learning React.
What We Learned
Prompting is its own craft
Clear, direct prompts led to better results. Ambiguity — even slight — often returned layouts that looked like they were pulled from the uncanny valley of component design.
Bolt is fast… impressively fast
Getting a basic React app with routing, components, and state set up in under a minute felt like magic. It’s a great way to move quickly through early ideation.
But it’s not psychic
Bolt can hallucinate props, invent helper functions that don’t exist, or drop in buttons with no event handlers. There’s still a need for human oversight (and debugging).
Iteration is key
We had the most success prompting small pieces at a time. Trying to get everything in one mega-prompt led to more confusion — for both us and Bolt.
The Verdict
Bolt is a fascinating look at where developer tooling is headed. It’s not perfect, but it’s powerful — especially for prototyping or fast experimentation. While it won’t replace thoughtful component design or clean architecture, it can absolutely help get you out of a creative block or speed through the boilerplate.
Would we use it again? Probably. But next time, we’ll bring more snacks and fewer assumptions.