Pragmatic Meet

Pragmatic Meet is a free platform that helps online and offline communities organize events, manage registrations, and connect with their members. The first version was built by adapting an existing open-source system, which allowed us to launch quickly and validate the product with real users. Over time, however, the inherited codebase became increasingly difficult and expensive to maintain. It contained a large amount of unused code, relied on technologies unfamiliar to the team, and made even relatively simple changes take several sprints. We decided to rewrite the platform from scratch using AI-supported Spec-Driven Development. Instead of relying on loosely defined prompts, we created a structured process that transformed product knowledge into business requirements, technical specifications, tests, and production code. AI-generated code was verified through automated tests, architecture checks, AI-assisted code reviews, manual reviews, and daily exploratory testing sessions. A team of four developers and one Product Owner rewrote more than 90,000 lines of code and moved the new application into production in approximately eight weeks. The average effort required to deliver a user story fell from around 60 hours to approximately 18 hours. The new version is now used by more than 1,000 people and provides a stronger foundation for faster, more predictable, and more cost-effective product development.

Over 90,000 lines of code were completely rewritten in three months. The new version of the product is now in production and has over 1,000 active users.

Online and offline communities looking for a free platform to organize events and meetups.

Rewriting legacy systems from scratch was long considered a bad idea. Kent Beck, Robert C. Martin, and Martin Fowler all warned against it. This project shows that, with AI and a disciplined process, that may no longer always be true.