Directed Output

Vibe coding gets you to version one.
Directed Output gets you to something you would actually put your name on.

AI-assisted development done with intention. Every decision behind this project is documented in the build log. The methodology is at the refinement loop. Built by Oliver White.

How Directed Output works →Follow the build →

The difference

Vibe coding

·One prompt, accept all
·Fast to start — slow to fix
·Can not explain what it built
·Breaks in production
·AI drives, you passenger

Directed Output

·A conversation you refuse to end until it is right
·Fast to start — and finish
·Can explain every line
·Ships with confidence
·You drive, AI builds

Read how the methodology works →

This methodology built something real

AI Art Arena is a live voting contest platform built entirely through the Directed Output process. Every decision is documented. Every line is understood. See the project →

How it works

01

Start rough

Get something on the table. The first prompt does not need to be perfect — it needs to be honest about what you want.

02

Evaluate critically

Do not ask if it works. Ask if you understand it. Could you debug this at 2am when production breaks?

03

Redirect with specificity

Vague follow-ups get vague results. The more precisely you describe what is wrong, the closer the next response gets.

04

Repeat

As many times as it takes. Each pass deepens your understanding and sharpens the output.

05

Ship when you own it

Not when it looks done — when you can explain every line. That is the difference.

From the build log

All posts →

ArchitectureSupabase

I built a live AI art voting platform in public — 33 migrations, one atomic RPC, and a methodology for working with AI that actually holds up

A production Next.js + Supabase voting platform, built entirely in public with every decision documented. Here is what that actually looked like — the architecture, the bugs that got shipped, the things that only broke under concurrency, and what Directed Output means in practice.

12 min read →

Next.jsTypeScript

The day I stopped fixing bugs and started fixing systems

Follow the build

Every decision documented.

The dead ends, the redirects, the fifth iteration that finally made sense. No noise. Just the work.

Yesterday's champion

★ Contest #11 Winner

Midnight Overseer

4 votes

Read the full process →

Every link on my profile page was broken. After an afternoon of chasing URLs, I understood why — and instead of patching the links, I built a tool that makes this class of bug impossible to miss. That is the difference.

7 min read →

PostgreSQLSupabase

Why I added a second voting axis — and the schema trade-off that almost didn't work

Every AI art voting platform asks one question: which image is better? We added a second: did it nail the prompt? Here is exactly what that required at the schema level, why a junction table beats a simple counter, and the one design decision the obvious approach gets wrong.

8 min read →

Next.jsAuthentication

Three bugs, one session: fixing a NextAuth v5 race condition, Next.js 16 async params, and broken contest URLs

Submitting a username left the app stuck on the onboarding page with no way to proceed — and the fix exposed two more routing bugs hiding in the same codebase. Here is exactly what broke and why.