What To Build

Product Introduction

1. What To Build is an AI-powered platform that helps developers discover project ideas, analyze existing GitHub repositories, and create visual development plans. The system combines machine learning with GitHub data analysis to provide actionable insights for software development workflows.
2. The core value lies in accelerating project initiation and collaboration by offering structured technical guidance, comparative repository analysis, and automated documentation tools tailored for open-source development.

Main Features

1. The AI Project Scaffolding feature transforms conceptual ideas into structured GitHub repositories using natural language processing to suggest relevant technologies, architecture patterns, and dependency mappings.
2. The Repository Comparator analyzes multiple GitHub repositories using 12+ metrics including commit frequency, star velocity, and contributor patterns, presented through interactive radar charts and time-series graphs.
3. The Smart README Generator employs codebase analysis to auto-detect project requirements, then generates Markdown documentation with dynamic placeholders, live preview functionality, and AI-powered section recommendations based on repository language and framework detection.

Problems Solved

1. Developers often struggle to transform vague ideas into executable project structures with appropriate technology stacks and architectural decisions, leading to abandoned prototypes.
2. The platform primarily serves mid-level developers exploring new domains, open-source maintainers seeking contribution candidates, and technical leads evaluating repository viability for enterprise adoption.
3. Common scenarios include generating starter templates for AI projects, identifying under-maintained repositories for potential forks, and creating investor-ready documentation for startup pitches within 15 minutes.

Unique Advantages

1. Unlike generic GitHub search tools, the platform integrates D3.js-powered visual comparisons of repository ecosystems and developer contribution patterns across 30-day activity windows.
2. The Liquid Glass UI component library enables real-time project visualization through interactive dependency graphs that update as users modify technology stack preferences.
3. Competitive differentiation comes from combining GPT-4-powered idea expansion with actual GitHub trend analysis, providing viability scores based on historical success patterns of similar projects.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. How does the AI generate project ideas from random concepts? The system uses transformer models trained on 2.8 million GitHub repositories to map conceptual keywords to proven technology combinations, supplemented by real-time analysis of trending Stack Overflow topics.
2. Can I compare private repositories using this tool? Currently, the platform only supports analysis of public GitHub repositories due to API access limitations, but offers enterprise plans with private instance deployment options.
3. What languages does the README generator support? The tool automatically detects 47 programming languages through file extension analysis and provides language-specific documentation templates, including specialized formats for DevOps configurations and machine learning projects.