What it does

Chef is an AI-powered app builder that spits out complete web applications with a database, authentication, file uploads, real-time UIs, and background workflows. It’s essentially a fork of bolt.diy that has been wired deeply into Convex’s reactive database and backend services. You describe what you want, and it generates both frontend and working backend code.

The interesting bit

The “magic” here is actually just tight API fit: Convex’s reactive database and serverless functions are unusually amenable to code generation because the abstractions are consistent and opinionated. Chef exposes its system prompt publicly, so you can see exactly how it steers the LLM — no black box. The project also includes a CLI interface (chefshot) and a test harness (test-kitchen) for poking at the agent loop.

Key highlights

• Built on Convex’s open-source reactive database; backend is first-class, not an afterthought
• Supports multiple model providers: Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, xAI
• Includes a template system for bootstrapping generated projects consistently
• Local development supported, though it still phones home to Convex’s hosted control plane
• System prompt is downloadable from releases — rare transparency for an AI coding tool

Caveats

• Authentication is hardcoded to Convex’s internal control plane; forking for production requires ripping it out and rebuilding OAuth yourself
• nvm dependency means Windows local setup is “you may have to find an alternative” — not exactly frictionless
• Local Chef tokens don’t count against your Convex usage, but you’re still tethered to their hosted infrastructure

Verdict

Worth a spin if you’re already in the Convex ecosystem or tired of AI builders that hand you a frontend and wish you luck with the database. Skip it if you need something self-hosted, framework-agnostic, or with pluggable auth out of the box.