Google wants you to vibe code now

Today’s issue: Tom Cruise teaches the masses unsafe LLMs, re-gifting presents to the React team, and The Harvard Crimson suppresses the truth.

Welcome to #401.

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Google wants you to vibe code now

And they want you to do it using their brand new, state-of-the-art AI platform called… Firebase?

Oh wait, it’s actually Firebase Studio, an AI-assisted development platform that lets you build, test, and deploy full-stack apps from your browser.

If that concept sounds familiar, you just earned 10 gold stars for reading comprehension – because Firebase Studio is basically a re-branded and upgraded version of Google’s Project IDX, which we’ve written about a few times in the past.

Firebase Studio builds on IDX’s all-in-one vision, but adds in more Gemini-powered AI features like a prompt-to-app text box and smarter code agents.

So how is this different from Bolt/Lovable/Replit? TLDR, it’s Google-maxxing all the way down. It ties together multiple Google services and offers a more structured and Googley approach to app building.

• Built on Firebase – It comes with services like auth, Firestore, and hosting, so your backend should just work (in theory) without requiring you to manually stitch together a bunch of separate tools. You can also deploy to Firebase Hosting with a few clicks.

• Gemini coding agents – Depending on the results from the latest confirmation bias machine AI coding benchmark, you may love or hate Gemini, but the custom coding agents are designed to work seamlessly with the rest of the Google stack.

• Blueprint-first prototyping – Once you submit an app prompt, instead of jumping right into code, Firebase Studio generates a customizable app spec showing you the proposed features, layout, tech stack, and style guide. It’s like having your own personal Google PM, in a good way (I think).

• It’s free, for now at least – Perks of being funded by 25 years of profits from arguably the most dominant business of all time.

Bottom Line: Google is officially the first big tech company to enter the vibe coding arena – and while they may not move as fast as some of the grow-or-die startups, they do bring a plug-and-play backend and a stack of mature services to the party. And that could be a compelling pitch, especially for professional developers.

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Postman just dropped some MCP heat

POST/CON 25 was last week, and they designed the keynote to feel like one big MMORPG quest. It used different levels and bosses to unveil their all-new AI tools – and there were a lot.

Here are our 5 biggest highlights:

1. MCP Server Generation lets you turn any existing API into an MCP server with a single click.

2. The MCP Server Network provides a curated list of verified, ready-to-use MCP servers for popular APIs like Stripe and Notion.

3. Agent Mode is a new conversational agent inside Postman that can send requests, write tests, and fix broken workflows for you.

4. The AI Tooling Suite gives you a toolkit for quickly building agents at scale in one seamless workflow.

5. Postman’s API Network comes with new features to distribute your API like a product to developers and agents.

Experience the keynote to level up and learn about the future of building MCP servers AI-ready APIs.

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1. Simon Willison wrote about the lethal trifecta for AI agents: private data, untrusted content, and external communication. He also made a 2.5-hour video on this topic starring Tom Cruise that’s currently in theaters and has grossed $500 million. Nice to see so many people learning about these important issues.

2. John Reilly and Ashley Claymore wrote about Why the TypeScript team is porting TypeScript to Go.

3. Frontend Best Practices Guide is a free resource from Datadog that covers everything you need to know about efficiently creating, maintaining, and utilizing reliable frontend tests. [sponsored]

4. Trevor Lasn wrote about how JavaScript was written back in the day, before we had ES6 and before any of our mothers had gotten addicted to Subway Surfers.

5. GitHub’s Remote GitHub MCP Server is now in public preview, allowing AI tools like Copilot to access live GitHub context and tools like code files and pull requests.

6. Animate UI is a fully animated, open-source component distribution built with React, TypeScript, Tailwind, Motion, and shadcn CLI – the one stack to rule them all and in the darkness bind them.

7. Clerk OAuth is now fully MCP-ready and comes with features like token revocation, consent screens, and dynamic client registration. It’s secure by default and provides a powerful drop-in auth solution for any OAuth use case. [sponsored]

8. React officially turned 12 years old a few weeks ago, so we made them this video to celebrate. Yes, this video is technically 3.5 years old – but as my step-dad taught me on my 9th and 11th birthdays, a re-gift still counts as a gift.

9. Louis Escher wrote this deep dive on Astro integrations.

10. Dan Abramov wrote an article called Suppressions of Suppressions. It reminded me of when my op-ed on “Why Disney intentionally tanked the release of Treasure Planet in 2002 and destroyed hand-drawn animation forever” was blatantly suppressed by the editor of The Harvard Crimson simply because I “sounded borderline paranoid” and “have never been a student at this university.” You can’t trust anyone.