Inspiration: Short-video creators live or die by their cover. A cover that reveals the twist kills curiosity; a cover that asks the right question makes people tap. CoverSpell was built for that moment.
What it does: You paste in what your video is about and what the twist or payoff is. CoverSpell turns it into cover-ready headline options that only pose a question and withhold the answer — plus a warning if your draft headline accidentally gives the twist away.
How I built it: CoverSpell is a lightweight web app built with Kiro using spec-driven development. I wrote a spec for the headline-generation rules (question-only, no outcome words, no result numbers), used steering docs to keep the copy style consistent, and used agent hooks to lint generated headlines against a spoiler-word list. The front end is a polished haunted-house themed interface created for the Costume Contest category: dark manor visuals, candle-glow accents and playful ghost micro-interactions that never get in the way of the tool itself.
Challenges: The hardest part was formalizing a creative instinct — 'tease, don't spoil' — into rules an app can actually check: detecting outcome verbs, numbers that reveal results, and conclusion phrases.
What I learned: A creative rule of thumb becomes much more powerful once it is written as a spec and enforced automatically.
