From prompt to production: how opix builds real Next.js apps

When you type "a booking tool for a hair salon" into opix, a pipeline starts that ends — usually about two minutes later — with a running Next.js app you can click through. Here's what happens in between, because the in-between is the product.

Step 1: the plan

opix first decides what to build: pages, data model, components, design language. For anything non-trivial you can run this as an explicit plan mode step — the plan is shown, you approve or redirect, and no build credits are spent until the direction is right.

Step 2: files stream into a sandbox

Generation writes real files — App Router routes, server components, TypeScript, Tailwind, schema — into a live cloud sandbox running a dev server. You watch every file land in the workspace as it's written. This isn't a progress bar over a black box; it's the actual build, visible.

Step 3: the gates

Two checks run before you ever see the result:

1. Type-check. tsc runs in the sandbox. Errors get repaired automatically and re-checked — 94% of first builds compile clean.
2. Runtime smoke. Compiling isn't working. opix loads the preview; if the app 500s, it reads the dev-server error, finds the suspect files, and fixes them.

Both gates are free. Repairs and failed attempts never burn credits — the meter only ticks for results you keep.

Step 4: a version, not just a preview

Every successful build is committed as a restorable version. The preview you're clicking is the app; the history behind it means any experiment is one click from undone.

Step 5: your exit, whenever

From there the loop is yours: refine by describing, pointing or pasting screenshots, publish to your-app.opix-app.com or a custom domain, and export the repository to GitHub whenever you want it. The output is a standard Next.js project on a dedicated Postgres database — production code you own, not a demo you rent.

The whole pipeline exists to make one sentence true: what you describe becomes software you'd be comfortable inheriting.