Re-writing Tapestry for AI workflows
Issue 289: Why I killed my app and started over
Last year, I made an app with vibe coding tools called Tapestry. Like many recruiters, high-touch relationship management is one of the most important parts of my job as a hiring manager. Instead of automating these relationships, I made a piece of software that helps me stay connected. Before tapestry, most of my notes and action items were stored in Airtable, Obsidian, and other apps. I shipped an app and built the entire platform on Replit: the UI, database, and LLM integrations.
What I shipped was my personal CRM, built for my perferences in the interface and curation tools.
Over time, Tapestry became my tool of choice. I continued to customize and add new features, such as a familiar spreadsheet view. One day, as I was vibe coding along with my favorite synthwave playlist, I had this difficult relationship:
Am I just re-rebuilding CRUD apps with AI?
Though there is a utilitarian value to building software at a low cost and quick, I realized what I built wasn’t reflecting of my new workflows and behaviors I’m forming. Having applications that are form submission for CRUD apps feel archaic now. There are some who believe UI is going away with AI. I am not one of them. Though UI isn’t going anywhere, it will rapidly become friction in the era of decoupled MVC. In its place are experiences that bring your interfaces closer to proximity to context.
The lesson of Tapestry v1 was simple: I built a personalized version of old software. Making someone log into yet another app felt laborious, not valuable. What I did find helpful was the service infrastructure I built to foster human relationships through notes, context, and promising direction of a recommendation engine.
Tapestry v2
Building v2 of Tapestry started with platform and protocols. I kept the UI built in v1 but shoved it aside to re-imagine the experience headless. Where would people actually be needing this product in their tool suite and proximity of their work?
When I interviewed recruiters for user research, most of them told me a lot of their workflows were now in ChatGPT or Claude. The first pivot was obvious to me, build a MCP server for Tapestry.
The new hypothesis is people likely will use their AI Chat Assistants as the primary workflow instead of logging into the app. The MCP Server allows customers to view, update, and action on key relationships with Natural Language instead of editing a bunch of fields in the UI. Notes, enrichment, and relationship tracking all became conversational rather than form-based. Instead of logging into the Tapestry app UI, people can work directly in their desktop tools.
Reflection
The big lesson in v1 of Tapestry was it was a prototype disguised as a production app. However, it was learning by shipping that allowed me to get to the value realization of the MCP Server. The value of what I was building with Tapestry turned out not to be the UI at all. It was the services and data that could be used in closer proximity to other tools I have.
Once those were separated, the experience drastically improved for me. It’s an important reminder that building for new behaviors means resisting the muscle memory of building what you’re used to.
MCP and agentic workflow setup is not very approachable today. My next step on this project is to figure out the best onboarding experience for a neophyte to be able to know what MCP is during their setup, let alone knowing how to set one up.
The future of work used to feel like everything was going to the cloud. With agents and new workflows, it may be a mix of hyper-local and hyper-cloud. Not only is Tapestry v2 more productive for me, but I’m also having so much joy using it directly from Claude Desktop to stay in touch with people.
Between Tapestry and Open Claw (a story for another day), I’m able to spend more time having high-touch conversations instead of doing administrative management.
Hyperlinks + notes
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Most vibe coded apps are ”prototypes disguised as Production apps“ 😅