Behind the Scenes: Building MarkView.app with Bolt.new (Video)

AI coding tools are powerful, but what does the actual workflow really look like? In this video, I take you behind the scenes of building MarkView.app—from the first prompt to a fully-featured application.

What You'll See in This Video

While I usually reach for Cursor as my AI development environment of choice, I wanted to experiment with Bolt.new to see how it handles building a complete application from scratch. This isn't a polished tutorial—it's an honest look at the wins, the struggles, and the iterative dance between developer intent and AI assistance.

You'll get to see the actual "Enhanced Prompts" I used to build features like:

PDF export functionality
AI-powered slide generation
Grid view for slide overview
And much more

The App: MarkView.app

MarkView.app is a terminal-styled Markdown presentation tool. If you're a developer who lives in the terminal, this one's for you.

Key Features

Markdown Rendering — Slides separated by --- with smooth keyboard navigation
Terminal UI — A retro, developer-focused aesthetic with that green-on-black goodness
AI Integration — Generate or refine presentations using OpenAI (your key stays local)
Export Options — Print to PDF and Grid View overview
Drag & Drop — Easy file handling with image support

The Prompts: All 108 of Them

Yes, you read that right—108 prompts went into building this application. Every single one is documented and available for you to explore:

👉 View All 108 Prompts

This is where the real learning happens. You'll see how I structured requests, how I handled errors and edge cases, and how the conversation with Bolt.new evolved over time.

Tech Stack

The app was built with a straightforward, modern stack:

Bolt.new — AI Development Environment
React — UI framework
OpenAI API — For AI slide generation features
Web Technologies — Vanilla CSS, browser APIs for drag-and-drop

Source Code

Want to dig into the code yourself? The entire project is open source:

🔗 GitHub: danielwanja/markview.app

Feel free to fork it, learn from it, or contribute improvements!

My Takeaways from Using Bolt.new

After building this entire application with Bolt.new, I came away with some clear observations:

The Wins:

Incredibly fast for scaffolding and initial implementations
The "Enhanced Prompt" feature helps structure requests effectively
Great for iterating on UI and visual features
Handles React patterns well

The Struggles:

Complex state management sometimes requires multiple iterations
Debugging can be tricky when the AI makes assumptions
Some features required very specific, detailed prompts to get right

Questions?

If you have questions about the specific prompts used or the bottlenecks I faced with Bolt.new, drop a comment on the YouTube video! I'm happy to dive deeper into any part of the process.

If you want more context on MarkView.app itself—including the initial 90-minute build session—check out my previous post: Building MarkView.app in 90 Minutes with Bolt.new.

Daniel Wanja is a developer and founder of Nouvelles Solutions, Inc. You can find him exploring the intersection of AI and software development, usually with a terminal open nearby.