Memo to Lovable - Move Beyond Prototypes!

The Honeymoon Phase

Let me start with the good news: I've been absolutely blown away by the progress I made with Lovable in my first few weeks vibe coding. You know that feeling when you're in flow state, ideas are translating directly into working features? That was me for about two glorious weeks.

After months of being stuck on key components with Claude (love you, Claude, but we both know your limitations), Lovable swooped in like a coding superhero. Suddenly, things that had been theoretical concepts in my head were actual, functioning pieces of software.

The Breakthrough Moments

The real magic happened when I tackled the core building blocks that every modern app needs. You know, those fundamental features that seem straightforward until you actually try to implement them:

User Management: Creating accounts, handling authentication, managing user sessions – the whole identity layer that makes your app feel legitimate instead of like a weekend hackathon project.

Stripe Integration: Because let's be honest, if you can't collect money, you don't have a business. Getting payment processing working properly, with all the webhooks and error handling and "what happens when the payment fails" scenarios.

Camera Integration with Database: This one was my white whale. Taking pictures within the app, processing them, storing them securely, and connecting everything to a database that doesn't fall over when more than three people use it simultaneously.

These aren't exotic features – they're the table stakes for most applications. But there's a massive gap between knowing what you need and actually building it. Lovable bridged that gap in ways that felt almost magical.

The Ominous Request

Then came the moment that should have triggered every alarm bell in my product management brain. Lovable, in its infinite algorithmic wisdom, suggested a refactor.

Dun dun dun.

Now, any PM worth their salt knows that "let's refactor this" is the engineering equivalent of "let's just reorganize the garage" – it sounds reasonable, it is (honestly) probably a good idea. Yes! I wanted organized bite-sized files. Yes please!

I should have said NO.

When "Helpful" Goes Horribly Wrong

What followed was a masterclass in how quickly momentum can evaporate. My app, which had been working beautifully, was suddenly unfixable. Features that my buddies had recently tested for me stopped functioning. Components that had taken days to perfect were now throwing new errors.

The worst part? It's been over a week, and I still can't get back to a working state. I lobbed 12 Lovable credits at the problem in different ways and discovered some weird gaps in Lovable. More on this in a sec...

Thank goodness I know how Git works. I just found an earlier version, cloned that, and deployed that version to Render instead of the latest Lovable commit. (Take that, bad refactor!)

The Git Integration Problem

Here's where the limitations of current AI coding tools become painfully obvious. Lovable, for all its impressive capabilities, operates in a vacuum. It can't connect to existing repositories. It can't see your Git history. It can't even perform a basic diff between what's working and what's broken.

Think about that for a moment. In 2025, we have AI tools that can generate sophisticated applications from scratch, but it doesn't fully work with the fundamental version control systems that every developer has used for the past decade. It's like having a brilliant architect who can design beautiful buildings but can't read blueprints.

This disconnect isn't just inconvenient – it's actively dangerous for anyone building something real. When things go wrong (and they will), you need to understand what changed, when it changed, and how to get back to a known good state. It also means you'll be stuck if you have hosted directly on Lovable.

The Cursor Migration

So where does this leave me? Time to level up to Cursor, which does connect to existing repositories.

I also need to ahem add in a better testing step. (Eye roll, yes, here's what happens when PMs are allowed to break every rule!)

This isn't just about switching tools – it's about graduating from prototype thinking to production thinking. Prototypes can be disposable. Real applications need to be maintainable, debuggable, and recoverable when things go sideways.

Lessons for the AI Coding Revolution

Here's my memo to Lovable and anyone else building AI coding tools:

Stop optimizing for the demo. Yes, it's impressive when someone can build a working app in 20 minutes. But what happens in week three when they need to modify something? What about month six when they want to add a feature?

Deeper Git integration isn't optional. It's not a nice-to-have feature for advanced users. It's the foundation that separates real development from elaborate sketching.

Refactoring suggestions should come with massive warning labels. When an AI suggests restructuring working code, it should require explicit confirmation and automatic backup creation. The default should always be "if it's working, don't touch it."

What's Next

I'm not giving up on AI-assisted development. The potential is too enormous, and my early wins with Lovable proved that the future is closer than I thought. But I'm approaching it with more wisdom about the current limitations and a healthy respect for the complexity of real software development.

Cursor is next on my list, and I'm hopeful that better Git integration will solve many of these workflow issues. I'll be sharing what I learn as I make the transition.

The revolution in AI-powered development is real, but we're still in the early stages. Tools like Lovable are incredible for getting started, but they need to evolve beyond prototype thinking if they want to support people building real, lasting software.

More to come soon – including whether Cursor lives up to the hype and how I get my coding groove back.

Have you had similar experiences with AI coding tools? What's worked for you, and what hasn't? Let me know – I'd love to hear from others navigating this new landscape.