We Rebuilt Next.js with AI in One Week (vinext Explained)

Podcast: This Week in NET
Episode: We Rebuilt Next.js with AI in One Week (vinext Explained)
Pub date: 2026-02-27

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In this episode of This Week in NET (the second this week focused on building with AI), host João Tomé is joined by Steve Faulkner, Engineering Director at Cloudflare, to discuss how he rebuilt a Next.js-compatible framework in just one week using AI. The project, called vinext, began as an experiment and evolved into a working proof of concept.

We explore what AI-first development looks like in practice, how coding agents were used to rewrite and test large API surfaces, and what happens when you treat dependencies as something you can regenerate rather than maintain manually.

The results were surprising: faster local builds, smaller bundles, deployment to Workers with a single command, and a total AI token cost of roughly $1,100.

We also discuss:

• Using voice-to-code workflows (SuperWhisper + local models)

• AI reviewing code multiple times

• Whether AI-assisted rebuilds will become common

• What this means for 2026 and beyond

Mentioned blog posts:

• How we rebuilt Next.js with AI in one week

⏱️ Timestamps 

0:12 — Introduction: the latest on the Cloudflare blog (monitoring post-quantum encryption and ASPA routing; JavaScript Streams — why we deserve a better API)

3:22 — Steve’s role and Workers platform overview

4:34 — How the idea came to be

6:11 — When AI tools became “good enough”

7:13 — Tooling setup: OpenCode, Claude, parallel agents

9:03 — AI beyond coding: management and markdown workflows

10:58 — What AI-first development actually means

12:03 — Performance gains: 4x faster builds, 57% smaller bundles

14:11 — ~$100 in tokens: the real cost

15:35 — Deploying to Workers with one command

17:25 — Community feedback and early adoption

19:09 — Will AI rebuild other frameworks?

20:25 — Voice-to-code workflows (SuperWhisper, Parakeet)

23:31 — Traffic-Aware Pre-Generation (TPR) explained

25:23 — Production caution and security

26:19 — How to get started (use AI to migrate your app)

27:12 — The big takeaway: AI is changing how we build software

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