Nexus

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  home page

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  login page

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  dashboard

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  workspace - mindmap view

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  workspace - task selected

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  workspace - kanban view

Inspiration

In early May, I was one of the first 7,000 people to register for the world's largest hackathon. For an indie hacker with nothing but a computer, this was it—the dream opportunity to finally build something and shine. The ideas started flowing. But a shadow loomed, a nightmare that had been chasing me for two years: my university exams. The very exams I had been running from.

The internal monologue was a battlefield.

"Surely you'd go for the exams. Your graduation shapes your future."

"But this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

"Opportunities come and go, grades don't."

"W-what if I fail again? I'll have nothing left... as always. Let me go all in just one more time."

"Or maybe I can just go for both?"

"START STUDYING ALREADY."

After a long journey of back-and-forth between my brain, my heart, and my parents, I made the hardest choice. I decided to go all in. Not on the hackathon, but on myself. I would face the exams, without any more excuses.

Fast forward through an intense journey of studying, and the exams were finally over. But the fear wasn't. The silence was deafening. What if I failed again, despite trying so hard? Maybe Computer Science is just not for me... maybe I picked the wrong choice, just like always. Maybe I should just GIVE UP.

I sent an email to a professor, asking to see my grade. The reply was a brief, "I'll look into it and come back." They never did. After days with my eyes glued to my screen, waiting for that "come back" email, I desperately sent another. The reply came. This time, it showed a single number: 80%.

That was a very long and quiet moment. It felt like that email had just changed my life. And it did.

Then, on June 27th, a thought sparked. The hackathon. There were still three days left. With the weight of years lifted off my shoulders, I felt an incredible surge of clarity and creative energy. The chaos of planning my life had just resolved into a single, clear path forward. And in that moment, I realized something. This was the very thing that had always held me back. It's my style—to get hyped on an idea, then lose faith the moment things get complicated and chaos starts to crawl in. When that happens, I instantly opt out and look for the next "hype."

That's when Nexus was born. It's the tool I've always needed. A tool to fight that impulse. A tool that can give anyone that feeling of finding clarity in the chaos of a complex project.

What it does

At its core, Nexus is a visual workspace designed to turn chaotic ideas into structured plans. This submission is a visualization of that idea—it's nowhere near a perfect, useful product, but it's a functioning prototype with a soul, built in just three days.

It has a surprising number of features for a 72-hour project:

• AI-Powered Planning: A user can provide a simple description, and the AI Assistant will generate a complete mind map with logical phases and tasks.

• Multiple Views: You can instantly switch between a flexible, creative Mind Map and a structured, process-oriented Kanban Board. Both views are powered by the same underlying data.

• Full Authentication & Database: It has a complete user authentication flow and a persistent Supabase backend, so signed-in users can save their projects.

• A Clean & Sleek UI: A huge amount of effort went into making the application feel polished, intuitive, and professional, from the layout to the micro-interactions.

How we built it

This project was a testament to the power of modern development tools. With only three days, speed and efficiency were everything.

• The Brain: The entire development process was supercharged by the Bolt.new agent. I was lucky enough to get 20 million free tokens for the weekend, and I spent them to the very last one to bring Nexus to life (sorry, I guess!). It helped me scaffold components, write complex logic, and debug issues at a speed I couldn't have managed alone.

• Frontend: React with TypeScript for a robust foundation.

• Backend & Database: Supabase was the hero, handling authentication, a Postgres database, and real-time subscriptions. An Edge Function was used to securely call the AI model.

• Visualization & Interaction: React Flow and Dagre.js power the mind map and its auto-layout features, while dnd-kit handles the smooth drag-and-drop on the Kanban board.

• AI Integration: The AI Assistant is powered by the Gemini API, which generates the structured JSON for project plans.

Challenges we ran into

The biggest challenge was the brutal honesty of a 3-day deadline. There was no time for perfection, only for progress. This meant making tough decisions about what to build and what to leave out.

This also means the app has bugs. A lot of them. The AI generation in guest mode is flaky. The workspace can have performance issues sometimes. The code isn't as clean as I'd like. But these aren't failures; they are the honest scars of a rapid, intense, and passionate sprint. The biggest challenge wasn't the code; it was accepting that "good enough" had to be good enough for now.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Honestly, I'm just proud that I'm submitting this. This project is a trophy for a personal battle I won. It's proof to myself that I don't have to run from challenges and that I can build something I'm passionate about.

Technically, I'm incredibly proud of shipping a full-stack, AI-integrated application with a polished UI in such a short time. The fact that a user can go from a blank page to a fully generated project plan in under a minute is an accomplishment that makes all the frantic effort worth it.

What we learned

1. The Obstacle IS the Way: My biggest personal challenge—my fear of failure and the chaos of my exams—became the direct inspiration for my project. I learned that our struggles aren't just things to be overcome; they are often the deepest wellsprings of creativity and purpose.

2. Embrace Imperfection: In a hackathon, "done" is better than "perfect." Shipping a project with known bugs is a lesson in humility and prioritization. It's about delivering a vision, even if the execution has a few rough edges.

3. AI as a Partner: Using the Bolt agent wasn't about replacing my skills; it was about augmenting them. It allowed me to focus on the product and user experience while it handled the boilerplate, acting as a true partner in a two-being team.

What's next for Nexus

This 3-day prototype is just the first node in a much larger mind map. The vision for Nexus is to become the ultimate clarity tool for indie hackers, students, and anyone who feels overwhelmed by their own ambition. The next steps are clear:

• Collaboration: Real-time, multi-user editing is the top priority.

• Polish & Performance: Hunt down those bugs and optimize the workspace.

• Deeper AI Integration: Move beyond generation to have the AI assist with task prioritization, dependency suggestions, and progress analysis.

• Integrations: Connecting Nexus to other tools like GitHub (to link tasks to commits) and Slack (for notifications).

• Templates: Offering pre-built templates for common project types like launching a podcast, planning a marketing campaign, or building a SaaS MVP.

And much more..

For now, though, Nexus has already served its most important purpose. It helped me turn my own chaos into clarity.

To be honest, a part of me didn't want to submit this. I know I can make it so much better, and this current version is just a snapshot, not the final vision. But I decided to submit it anyway. Not because I think it's a flawless product, but because it represents something more important: a promise I made to myself to pursue an idea to the very end, no matter what.

This project is a living document. I'll be constantly shipping updates and hunting down bugs. My hope is that by the time you read this, it will already be a little better, a little closer to the vision I have for it (hopefully that doesn't break any rules!).

Finally, a huge thank you to the Bolt.new team for creating this incredible opportunity. You provided the tools and the platform that helped turn a moment of personal victory into something tangible I can share with the world.

Built With

• bolt
• gemini
• react
• supabase
• tailwindcss
• typescript
• vite