StackOverGrave

Where dead stacks rise again

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💀 Inspiration

This project began back in 2021 , when I worked on automating the migration of ASP.NET Web Forms to ASP.NET Core and Angular for my final-year thesis using parse trees and template engines. That rigid approach required months of engineering per technology and was limited to a single tech stack.

So the question became: what if migration didn’t have to be rebuilt from scratch every time a technology disappears?
What if AI could understand any legacy stack and bring it back to life?

StackOverGrave is my attempt to answer that.

⚡ What it does

StackOverGrave takes old, abandoned codebases and resurrects them into modern, maintainable applications.

🎯 Core Features:

📦 Multi-Source Import

  • Paste public GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket URLs
  • Upload ZIP files of legacy projects
  • Automatic branch detection (main/master/develop)

🔍 Intelligent Analysis

  • Detects technology: VB6, Flash ActionScript, Silverlight, old .NET Framework
  • Scores files by criticality (entry points, models, business logic)
  • Validates project size and complexity

🧙 AI-Powered Resurrection

  • Small projects (≤20 files): Fully automatic conversion
  • Medium projects (≤50 files): Top 15 critical files + detailed migration guide
  • Context-aware conversion maintains consistency across files
  • Generates modern .NET 8 C#, TypeScript/Angular, or Blazor

📁 Production-Ready Output

  • Downloadable ZIP with proper project structure
  • Comprehensive README with setup instructions
  • Migration guide with find/replace patterns

🎃 Spooky UX

  • Halloween-themed graveyard dashboard
  • Tombstones crack open as files resurrect
  • Real-time progress with ghost particles

🛠️ How we built it

Tech Stack:

  • Frontend: Angular 17 (TypeScript) with spooky animations
  • Backend: ASP.NET Core 8 Web API (C#)
  • AI: OpenAI GPT-3.5-turbo for cost-effective conversions
  • Storage: SQLite (in-memory for demo)
  • Development: Kiro AI-powered IDE (95% code generation)

Architecture:

🌐 Frontend (Angular)
    ↓ 
🔧 GitRepositoryService → Downloads & extracts
    ↓
📊 RepositoryAnalysisService → Scans, scores, selects files
    ↓
🤖 AI ConversionService → Context-aware batch processing
    ↓ (for medium projects)
📖 MigrationGuideService → Generates detailed guide
    ↓
📦 PackagingService → Creates downloadable ZIP
    ↓
⬇️ User downloads resurrected project

Kiro's Role:

95% of code generated by Kiro in 3 days:

  • ⚡ Vibe coding: Rapid UI prototyping - complete file upload system with animations in 15 minutes
  • 📋 Spec-driven: Complex Repository Resurrection backend - 6 interconnected services in one pass
  • 🎨 Steering docs: Halloween theme consistency - reduced manual styling from 40% to 5%

🔥 Challenges we ran into

💰 Token Budget Constraint: OpenAI costs could spiral out of control. We solved this with intelligent file selection (top 15 critical files only) and switching from GPT-4 to GPT-3.5-turbo, reducing costs from $8 to $3 per conversion.

🔗 Context Loss Between Files: Converting files independently produced inconsistent code. We built a stateful service that accumulates context—each file's prompt includes patterns from previous conversions, maintaining architectural consistency.

📏 Project Size Limits: Can't realistically convert 200+ files in 3 days. We turned this limitation into a feature: small projects get full conversion, medium projects get core files + expert migration guide.

🏆 Accomplishments that we're proud of

⚡ 5 Days → 15 Minutes: Kiro generated production-ready code (file upload, editor, animations, theme) in 15 minutes. What normally takes a week of manual coding.

🧠 Context-Aware Intelligence: Not just another ChatGPT wrapper. StackOvergrave learns from each file conversion to maintain architectural consistency across the entire project—a technical achievement requiring sophisticated prompt engineering.

🎨 Actually Enjoyable: Legacy modernization is usually tedious. We made it fun with cracking tombstones, ghost particles, and darkly humorous messaging. The Halloween theme transforms a boring task into an entertaining experience.

💡 What we learned

Kiro changed how we code. It's not about writing less—it's about thinking at a higher level. We focused on architecture and UX while Kiro handled implementation. The 95% code generation isn't laziness—it's force multiplication.

Real-world insight: My thesis taught theory; this hackathon taught reality. People don't need perfect conversions of 200 files—they need the 15 most critical files done perfectly, plus guidance for the rest. User needs > technical completeness.

Breakthrough discovery: AI isn't just for single-file generation. By maintaining context across conversions, we achieved consistency rivaling human refactoring. This pattern—stateful, context-aware AI workflows—extends far beyond code conversion.

🚀 What’s next for StackOvergrave: Where dead stacks rise again

Become the Stripe of code modernization - simple, powerful API that handles complexity behind the scenes. Every company with legacy code becomes a potential customer. The total addressable market is massive (Fortune 500 alone spend billions annually on maintenance).

StackOverGrave isn't just a hackathon project - it's the foundation of a real business solving a real problem.

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