Introducing Monkey's Paw 🐒✋ – a prompt-driven web framework in Ruby where your page descriptions are the source code. You write your wishes in markdown files in your wishes folder, and an LLM grants them... exactly as you state them.
This is the first release in the "Works on Your Machine" category on my newsletter (link in comments!): sharing experiments that have graduated beyond just my local setup.
It grew out of my RubyConf talk "Going Postel" and the idea that "Hallucinations are a Feature, not a Bug." - What if we embrace the weirdness and build systems that accept AI's output, rather than fighting for perfect structure?
What Monkey's Paw does:
📝 Translates .md prompt files ("wishes") into full web pages.
✨ Uses an LLM to generate the HTML, CSS, and even attempt the JS based on your descriptions.
⚠️ Comes with the classic Monkey's Paw warning: Be careful what you wish for...
Performance and precision are sacrificed at the altar of expression!
It's less about perfect control, more about exploring what happens when natural language is the program. Think of it as the "yes, and..." improv approach to web frameworks.
It's now available as a Ruby gem! Find the code on GitHub (sublayerapp/monkeyspaw) and read the full origin story, see examples (including the prompt that generated its own homepage!), and understand the why behind this experiment on my Substack.
Would love to see what beautiful (or terrifying) things you create if you give it a spin!