Ben Tossell Built an 87-Device Retro Timeline Site in a Morning with Codex and Subagents
Ben's Bites · rss · 2026-09-25
Ben's Bites author Ben Tossell documents building his "50 years of tech devices" site in a single morning: 87 devices from 1976 to 2026 (all images generated by Astra), 40 messages, 7 subagents, and 1,455 votes so far.
Key workflow details:
- Started with a one-line prompt to Astra producing a "still works" device grid; after seeing Cole's timeline-scrubbing demo, he had Codex locate the original images and prompts and generate three versions, then iterated on interaction;
- Used subagents to parallel-fill devices from 2009 to today, each resolved to the real model with a reference photo before generating precise images (prompts specified down to button placement);
- Voting and shareable "my devices" pages carry picks in the URL—no database or auth; here.now mounts the site at bentossell.com/devices as a separate site;
- Post-launch, agents diagnosed slow image loading and a vote-read rate limit, and a new video skill generated the demo clip one-shot.
The most transferable lesson: remixing inspirations into agent prompts, generating three mockups to pick from, and refining vague ideas through visible iterations.
More from coding & agent
- pnpm urges devs to spend spare tokens fixing its 629 open issues, ships a ready-made agent prompt — itsOmSarraf_ · 2026-09-25
- Geoffrey Huntley Demos a Software Factory Where the Product Is Its Own IDE — teropa · 2026-09-25
- Open-Source iCloud MCP Runs Without a Mac: 31 Tools, Headless Chromium — sjdonado · 2026-09-25
- Microsoft ships enterprise product on OpenClaw after months of joint hardening work — steipete · 2026-09-25
- Open-sourced skill turns your codebase into a polished product promo video via Claude Code — op7418 · 2026-09-25
- BlackRock paper sparks debate: agent payments settle fine, but revoked permissions can't catch up — tallmetommy · 2026-09-25