Games and Creativity · Blog · 🇺🇸 United States · via agentusecases.ai
Retiree with no coding experience builds a household dinner app
Deirdre Straughan wrote a list of features and let Codex gradually build a local dinner suggestion app.
- Profession
- Retiree
- Source
- beginningwithi.com ↗
- Country
- 🇺🇸 United States
- Found via
- agentusecases.ai (Alex Finn) ↗
- Report date
- March 3, 2026
- Verified on
- October 25, 2026
What they did
With no programming experience, she wrote a list of features, asked ChatGPT to turn it into a prompt for Codex, and let Codex build the app in small steps, testing with real data and asking for changes. She later added a recipe source and unit conversion.
How it went
It took about 20 hours over less than a week, according to her blog.
Good to know
Ask for small milestones and test each one before the next. That is what makes the project doable for non-programmers.
The prompt
I want a simple app that runs only on my computer, to [goal]. Features: [list]. Build it in small steps, explain how to test each one, and wait for my OK before moving on. Use plain language, I'm not a programmer.
Replace what is in [brackets]. Prompt written by us from the account, not a literal copy of the source. Do not paste other people’s personal data (privacy laws such as LGPD and GDPR apply).
Summary in our own words. Results as stated in the original account; we have not tested or audited them. Read the source ↗ Case found via agentusecases.ai (Alex Finn); text and prompt rewritten by us. Found a mistake?
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