I Finally Stopped Designing and Started Building MaxOS

A developer building MaxOS, an AI-first workspace, shifted focus from designing to coding after spending too much time on UI concepts. The project uses React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, and Zustand, with a reusable design system and features like a dashboard, AI chat, and agent manager. The developer, a software student, is building in public and plans to add local filesystem access, Monaco Editor, and AI providers next.

A few weeks ago I started sharing my idea for MaxOS, an AI-first workspace that puts AI at the center of the desktop experience instead of treating it like another app. Since then, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the architecture, generating UI concepts, and planning how everything should work. At some point I realized I had a problem. I was spending way more time designing than actually writing code. So I decided to stop chasing the perfect UI and start building the real application. Turning mockups into a real app I used Google Stitch to generate a lot of interface ideas. It was honestly a great way to explore layouts and workflows. The HTML it generates isn't something I'd want to maintain though. Instead of trying to clean it up, I used the screens as references and rebuilt everything with React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, and reusable components. That turned out to be a much better approach. Where the project is now Right now MaxOS has the basic structure it needs to grow. So far I've built: A reusable design system The application shell Dashboard Projects page Code editor interface AI chat interface Command palette Memory page Agent manager Settings Zustand state management Routing Most of it still runs on mock data, and that's completely intentional. I'd rather spend time building a solid foundation than rush into features I'll have to rewrite later. What's next Now comes the part I've been looking forward to the most. The next milestones are things like: Local filesystem access Monaco Editor Terminal integration Git integration AI providers Context engine Memory engine This is where MaxOS starts becoming more than just a nice interface. Building in public I'm still a software development student, so I'm figuring out a lot of this as I go. That's also why I'm sharing everything publicly. I'll probably make mistakes, change my mind, and rewrite parts of the project. That's all part of the process. If you've built Electron apps or AI tools before, I'd love to hear your advice. Thanks for following along.