Hey folks,

On Friday, I recorded myself vibe-coding a Chrome extension for Bolt (using Bolt). It was like a live-stream, except it was just me recording 😅 - you can watch how I came up with ideas for features, implemented them and of course, got hit with bugs (and solved most of them). Watch it here, or read the preview below.

TLDR; inside today’s newsletter

quick look at Claude’s new web search feature

OpenAI’s new package for building voice agents

words from today’s sponsor: SambaNova Cloud

my latest experiment: Building a Chrome extension for Bolt

your 5 min recap for new tools and news

 🔎 What’s trending

Claude can now search the web (in the US—though VPN works 😉). It was the only one without web access, but now it joins the fray. It’s likely using Brave for its search engine. It searches multiple times for a single message, and the UI for results and citations is a 5 ⭐️ implementation. Claude’s a bit reluctant to use search (compared to ChatGPT/Gemini/Grok), but that might not be a bad thing.

OpenAI released new audio models for developers. They are going back to the Speech → Text → Speech workflow of building audio applications. What do we get?

Two transcription models: gpt-4o-transcribe and gpt-4o-mini-transcribe. These can take audio in and spit text out. They are the best you can ask for and relatively cheap.

A new text-to-speech model: gpt-4o-mini-tts. In addition to converting text to speech, it also accepts your instructions like “make it sound scared”. You can try a demo of this model at openai.fm

Also, Advanced Voice Mode in ChatGPT will now interrupt you less and has a better personality (whatever that means).

Boost the speed of your AI apps with lightning-fast inference powered by SambaNova Cloud! Start developing with the best open source models including Llama, Qwen, and DeepSeek R1 671B. Get your own API key and start building in minutes. Start now for free!*

Rumors from the Twittersphere: Google has three new models under testing on LMArena, one of which is SOTA.
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👀 Building a Chrome extension for Bolt

If you've been on X recently, you've probably seen more non-technical founders building their MVPs with AI tools like Bolt. But there's a catch—you still need to know what to ask for.

You may have heard of 'Cursor Rules'—configuration files that customise AI behaviour in the Cursor code editor based on your projects' needs. Developers have these tools to enhance their workflow, but what about the rest of us?

So I thought: what if non-technical founders had their own version of "rules" for AI coding tools?

Which is what I set out to build.

The knowledge gap problem

I love these new tools, but as a builder, I find myself writing "implement authentication with Supabase" or "set up Netlify deployment" over and over. And if you're not technical, how would you even know to specify these details?

You don’t know what you don’t know.

Should you use Firebase or Supabase? Tailwind or Bootstrap? Stripe or Paddle? And what configuration details matter for each?

What you'll learn

In this post, I'll walk you through:

How I built a Chrome extension that adds a sidebar of options to Bolt

My process of using Claude to help ideate a new tool

The challenges I faced and how I solved them (or didn't!)

How this meta-development approach can help non-technical founders bridge the knowledge gap

Ways you can use, modify, or be inspired by this tool for your own projects

What the extension actually does

The extension works by adding a sidebar to your Bolt interface with categories of implementation details you might want to include in your projects:

App templates: Options for CRM, blog, and other common applications

Front-end frameworks: React, Next.js, Vue, and others

UI components: Tailwind, ShadCN, and other styling frameworks

Database: Supabase (the default Bolt integration), Firebase, and others

User authentication: Supabase, Clerk, and others

Payments: Stripe, Paddle, and other payment processors

Code quality: Standards for testing, documentation, error handling

Deployment options: Settings for Netlify (Bolt's default deployment option)

When you select an option, the extension adds specific implementation instructions to your Bolt prompt. For example, clicking "User Authentication" with "Supabase" selected adds:

"Implement secure email/password authentication using Supabase Auth with proper session management, password reset functionality, and account verification."

The real magic is how contextual the extension is. It detects whether you're starting a new project or working within an existing one, and adjusts its prompts accordingly.

Building the extension step by step

Read the full post and watch the video here →

⚙️ Tools and news

Memex - The AI builder empowering tech-savvy non-coders. Turn your vision into reality through chat. Free credits with code 'BB'.*

Stripe built a VS Code extension that helps you integrate Stripe payments in your products using AI-written code. It should work with Cursor too (Cursor is a VS Code clone—technically called a “fork”).

AI SDK by Vercel now supports reasoning and MCP clients. MCP is a protocol for connecting your data to AI apps. Zapier is taking a jab at them, and a16z has an MCP market map already.

Together AI released a chat app for you to chat with all the open-source models like DeepSeek, Llama, Qwen, Flux, etc. Reminder: these models are not running on your machine locally; they are hosted on Together’s servers.

Meet with developers in the AI ecosystem at GLOSIAC - Global Open Source AI Conference. When? 16th April 2025. Where? virtually.

Resend, the email sending platform, has a new AI tool: New email. It creates beautiful, responsive, and cross-platform emails using natural language.

Whalesync put together a list of top AI tools that a) solve a real problem and b) are not gonna die tomorrow. You can search and filter for your needs.

Wired did a cool story peeking behind the curtain of what the past two years have been like at Google. From a 100-day challenge to launch Bard after ChatGPT launched, to moments of building NotebookLM’s podcast tool and giving Gemini an insane context length.

10x is a new app that came out of a live competition called PMF or DIE. It turns learning anything into a game using AI and aims to turn learning into a status symbol.

Distro is a new AI content strategist that wants to flip the script for AI-generated content. AI asks you questions and then takes your expertise to write content for your socials.

Peter Yang is a powerhouse right now if you want to code with AI. Over the weekend, he published his new post: 12 rules to vibe code without frustration, and then brought Nat Eliason to teach a 30-minute Cursor tutorial.

Ethan Mollick (a Wharton professor) is one of the best people to follow if you want to understand AI. His new research with P&G shows that having an AI on your team can increase performance, provide expertise, and improve your experience. More in his latest blog.

Our free newsfeed for more →
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That’s it for today. Feel free to hit reply and share your thoughts. 👋