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AIUnpacker

Best AI Prompts for Next.js Application Setup with Google Antigravity

AIUnpacker

AIUnpacker

Editorial Team

27 min read

TL;DR — Quick Summary

Eliminate the 'blank canvas' problem and drastically reduce setup friction for your Next.js projects. This guide provides the best AI prompts to leverage Google Antigravity, enabling a frictionless development workflow that maximizes your time-to-first-commit and overall developer velocity.

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Quick Answer

We solve the ‘blank canvas’ problem by implementing the ‘Mission’ protocol, a specialized AI agent workflow that slashes Next.js setup time. This guide provides the exact prompts to deploy a Backend Architect and Frontend Engineer in parallel. Our goal is to cut your time-to-first-commit by over 50% using a frictionless, serverless-first ‘Antigravity’ architecture.

The 'Mission' Protocol

Stop asking AI to 'build an app' and start assigning roles. The 'Mission' protocol splits the setup into parallel tasks: Agent Alpha handles backend plumbing (APIs, DB) while Agent Beta builds the frontend (UI, state). This specialized approach prevents messy code and cuts setup time in half.

The “Mission” Protocol for Next.js Deployment

How much time have you lost to the “blank canvas” problem? Before a single feature is built, you’re already bogged down in the setup friction: configuring Webpack, wrestling with environment variables, debating folder structures, and integrating APIs. This initial grind is a notorious project killer. In 2025, the true measure of developer velocity isn’t just deployment speed; it’s the time-to-first-commit. Every hour spent on scaffolding is an hour not spent building value.

Enter the “Mission” protocol, a paradigm shift powered by the conceptual force of Google Antigravity—representing rapid, frictionless acceleration. Instead of a monolithic, sequential setup, we treat the process as a coordinated mission with specialized AI agents. We don’t just ask an AI to “create a Next.js app.” We assign roles:

  • The Backend Agent: Scopes the API routes, database schema, and authentication logic.
  • The Frontend Agent: Scaffolds the UI components, layouts, and client-side state.
  • The DevOps Agent: Configures the CI/CD pipeline, environment variables, and deployment settings.

These agents work in parallel, building the foundational scaffolds simultaneously.

This guide delivers a tactical playbook for this new reality. You will learn the specific prompt architectures to generate boilerplate code, configure your environment for a Google Antigravity workflow, and execute parallel build processes. Our goal is to cut your application setup time by over 50%, transforming a week-long ordeal into an afternoon’s work.

Mission Briefing: Defining the “Antigravity” Architecture

What if your application scaffolding wasn’t a linear, step-by-step process, but a simultaneous, coordinated sprint? That’s the core principle behind the “Antigravity” architecture. It’s a development philosophy designed to counteract the gravitational pull of boilerplate, configuration, and slow iteration cycles. Instead of building sequentially—backend, then frontend, then deployment—we architect for velocity from the very beginning. This means prioritizing a stack that feels weightless, responsive, and infinitely scalable.

The “Antigravity” stack leans heavily on serverless-first principles. We’re targeting environments like Google Cloud Run or Firebase for our backend logic. Why? Because they abstract away server management entirely. Your API routes aren’t running on a persistent, 24/7 server that you have to patch and scale; they spin up on demand, execute, and disappear. This is the essence of a “weightless” backend. For the user, this translates to sub-100ms cold starts and a platform that automatically scales from one user to one million without a single manual intervention. We pair this with edge computing principles where possible, pushing logic closer to your users for lightning-fast response times, regardless of their location. This isn’t just about speed; it’s about building a foundation that can’t be overwhelmed by unexpected success.

The Mission Logic: Simulating a Specialized Team

The “Mission” framework treats the AI not as a single, monolithic assistant, but as a simulated team of specialized agents. This is where the real efficiency gains are unlocked. A single, massive prompt asking an AI to “build my full-stack app” almost always results in a tangled, mediocre mess. By contrast, assigning clear, distinct roles allows you to generate pristine, purpose-built code for each part of the stack in parallel.

Our mission deploys two primary agents:

  • Agent Alpha (The Backend Architect): This agent is your server-side specialist. Its sole focus is the “invisible” plumbing of your application. You’ll task it with generating secure API routes (e.g., /api/auth/[...nextauth]/route.ts), defining robust database schemas using an ORM like Prisma, and implementing authentication logic. It thinks in terms of data integrity, security, and serverless compatibility.
  • Agent Beta (The Frontend Engineer): This agent is your UI/UX craftsman. It lives in the app directory, building responsive layouts, interactive components, and managing client-side state. It thinks in terms of user experience, component reusability, and modern UI patterns, using libraries like Tailwind CSS and TanStack Query.

By running these agents simultaneously, you effectively halve your setup time. While Agent Alpha is architecting your database schema, Agent Beta can be generating the login form component that will eventually consume it.

Mission Prerequisites: Your Launch Kit

Before we can initiate the launch sequence, you need to have the right tools on your workstation. This isn’t a complex list, but having everything ready ensures a smooth, frictionless experience.

  • Node.js (LTS Version): The fundamental runtime for all modern JavaScript development.
  • An AI-Powered Coding Assistant: We’ll be using prompts designed for advanced tools like Cursor (which has deep codebase awareness) or GitHub Copilot (especially in its Chat/Edits mode). These tools understand context far better than a generic chat interface.
  • A Google Cloud Project: This is your “Antigravity” control center. You’ll need a project with billing enabled to access Cloud Run, Firebase, and other services. This is where your agents will eventually deploy their creations.
  • A Package Manager: pnpm is our recommended choice for its speed and efficiency, but npm or yarn will work just fine.

With this launch kit prepared, you’re no longer just a developer; you’re a mission commander, ready to direct your AI agents to build at unprecedented speed.

Agent Alpha: Backend Scaffolding Prompts (The API Layer)

When you’re commanding a mission, the backend isn’t just code—it’s the command center. If this layer fails, the entire operation is compromised. Agent Alpha’s role is to build an unshakeable foundation, focusing on the API, data integrity, and security. We’re not just generating files; we’re architecting a production-ready system that can scale. In my experience, a rushed backend setup is the number one cause of technical debt down the line, leading to security vulnerabilities and data synchronization nightmares. By offloading this to a well-prompted AI agent, you ensure these critical pieces are handled with the precision of a senior engineer from the very first line of code.

Generating a Bulletproof API Structure

Your first task for Agent Alpha is to establish the API directory and its core logic. A common mistake is to create a flat, disorganized pages/api or app/api folder. A professional structure anticipates growth, separates concerns, and enforces consistency. This prompt is designed to generate a scalable architecture that includes validation and error handling from day one.

Golden Nugget: The most overlooked aspect of Next.js API routes is centralized error handling. Without it, you’ll scatter try...catch blocks everywhere, leading to inconsistent error responses. The expert move is to generate a custom error class and middleware that catches errors globally, ensuring every endpoint returns a standardized, predictable error format (e.g., { "error": "NotFound", "message": "User not found" }). This single practice saves countless hours in frontend debugging.

Use this prompt to task Agent Alpha with building your API foundation:

Prompt for API Scaffolding: “Act as a Senior Backend Engineer specializing in scalable, serverless architectures. Generate a robust Next.js App Router api directory structure.

Requirements:

  1. Structure: Create a /api/users route with a route.ts file. Implement GET (list all), POST (create), GET by ID (fetch one), PUT (update), and DELETE handlers.
  2. Type Safety: Define and export TypeScript interfaces for the User object (e.g., User, CreateUserInput, UpdateUserInput).
  3. Validation: Integrate Zod for request body validation on the POST and PUT handlers. Create a Zod schema that validates fields like email (string, email format) and name (string, non-empty).
  4. Database Integration: The handlers should include placeholder logic for connecting to a Google Cloud Firestore instance. Use a db helper object (e.g., import { db } from '@/lib/db') and demonstrate how to perform a Firestore add() or update() operation.
  5. Error Handling: Implement a try...catch block in each handler that catches validation errors or database errors and returns a standardized JSON error response with a 400 or 500 status code.

This prompt gives the AI explicit roles, constraints, and architectural patterns. The output will be a set of files that are not just functional but also follow best practices for type safety, validation, and error management, providing a reliable contract for your frontend.

Securing the Perimeter: Authentication & Environment Setup

With the API structure in place, Agent Alpha’s next priority is security. A mission-critical application requires robust authentication. In 2025, relying on simple session cookies isn’t enough; you need a stateless, scalable solution like JWTs, especially when deploying to serverless environments like Vercel or Google Cloud Run. This involves generating secure logic and, just as importantly, enforcing best practices for managing secrets.

Prompt for Authentication & Security: “Act as a Security Engineer. Implement a secure authentication setup for our Next.js project using JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) for a stateless approach.

Tasks:

  1. Environment Validation: Create a lib/validate-env.ts file that uses the zod library to validate the presence and format of required environment variables: JWT_SECRET, DATABASE_URL. The script should throw a clear error if any are missing or invalid.
  2. JWT Utility: Generate a lib/auth.ts utility file with two functions: generateToken(payload: object) which signs a JWT with a 24-hour expiration, and verifyToken(token: string) which verifies the token and returns the decoded payload.
  3. API Route: Create a app/api/auth/login/route.ts file. It should accept a POST request, validate the email/password against a mock user (hardcoded for now), and if successful, call generateToken to return the JWT to the client.
  4. Middleware: Create a middleware.ts file at the root. It should intercept requests to /dashboard/* routes, extract the Authorization header, and use the verifyToken utility to validate the JWT. If invalid, it should redirect to the /login page.

This prompt demonstrates an expert understanding of the full security stack: validating configuration, handling cryptographic tokens, and protecting routes. It forces the AI to think about the entire authentication flow, not just a single function.

Defining the Data Model in Parallel

One of the core tenets of the “Antigravity” mission is parallel execution. While Agent Alpha is building the API, the frontend team (Agent Beta) needs to know what the data looks like. The database schema is the single source of truth that connects both worlds. Instead of manually writing a Prisma schema, we can task the AI with generating it directly from a Product Requirements Document (PRD). This ensures the backend and frontend are perfectly in sync from the start.

Prompt for Prisma Schema Generation: “You are a Database Architect. Read the following product requirements and generate a Prisma schema.prisma file.

PRD Summary:

  • We need a User model. Each user has a unique id, email, name, passwordHash, and createdAt timestamp.
  • We need a Project model. Each project has a unique id, a title, a description, and a status (e.g., ‘IN_PROGRESS’, ‘COMPLETED’).
  • A Project must belong to one User. A User can have many Projects. This is a one-to-many relationship.

Output Requirements:

  1. Define the User model with appropriate field types and attributes (e.g., @id, @unique, @default(now())).
  2. Define the Project model with its fields.
  3. Establish the one-to-many relationship between User and Project using Prisma’s relation fields (author on Project, projects on User).
  4. Ensure all fields are correctly typed for a PostgreSQL database.”

By feeding the PRD to the AI, you’re not just getting a schema; you’re creating a formal data contract. This file can immediately be used by Agent Alpha to build the API routes and by Agent Beta to generate TypeScript types for the frontend, enabling true parallel development.

Agent Beta: Frontend Scaffolding Prompts (The UI Layer)

How do you build a user interface that feels instantaneous while the backend is still being forged? This is the central challenge of parallel development. Agent Beta is your specialist in the visual realm, tasked with sculpting the UI layer to be so lightweight and responsive that it feels like it’s defying gravity. But speed isn’t enough; it has to be built on a solid foundation. A single misstep in state management or data fetching can introduce performance bottlenecks that are impossible to fix later. Getting the scaffolding right from the start is what separates a prototype that feels sluggish from a production app that users love.

Component Architecture & UI Libraries: The “Antigravity” Aesthetic

The Google Antigravity aesthetic is defined by three principles: clean, fast, and minimal. It’s not about flashy animations; it’s about eliminating friction. To achieve this, we need a UI stack that gets out of the way. My go-to combination for this is Next.js 14+, Tailwind CSS, and Shadcn/UI. Tailwind provides the utility-first engine for rapid, performance-focused styling, while Shadcn/UI offers beautifully designed, accessible components that you own outright. This avoids the bloat of a monolithic component library and gives you total control.

Your first mission for Agent Beta is to establish the core layout and a landing page. This prompt is designed to generate code that prioritizes the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) metric by ensuring the main layout is a Server Component, keeping the client-side JavaScript bundle lean.

Example Prompt:

“Act as a Frontend Architect specializing in performance. Initialize the core UI structure for a Next.js 14+ application using the App Router. Your goal is to establish a foundation for a clean, fast, and minimal user experience.

  1. Layout Scaffolding: Create a root app/layout.tsx that defines the HTML shell. It must include a primary font optimization strategy (e.g., next/font/local) and a <body> tag that applies a neutral background color to prevent a flash of unstyled content.
  2. Navigation Component: Generate a components/Navbar.tsx file. This should be a Server Component that renders a simple, responsive navigation bar with a logo placeholder and links to /dashboard and /settings. Use Tailwind CSS for styling, focusing on semantic HTML and a clean, unobtrusive design.
  3. Dashboard Page Skeleton: Create the app/dashboard/page.tsx. This page should import the Navbar and render a main content area. Inside, generate a placeholder Card component that will later be populated with user data. The card should have a clear visual hierarchy (header, body, footer) but remain static for now.”

This prompt does more than just create files; it enforces a performance-first mindset. By specifying a Server Component for the layout and navbar, you’re immediately reducing the initial JavaScript payload. The request for font optimization is a golden nugget of performance tuning—using next/font eliminates layout shift and improves LCP scores dramatically. This is a detail many developers miss until they run a Lighthouse audit, but baking it in from the start saves valuable time.

State Management & Data Fetching: Connecting the Dots

A beautiful UI is useless without data. The challenge in a parallel workflow is that Agent Alpha (the backend) might not have the API endpoints live yet. This is where strategic data fetching libraries like TanStack Query (React Query) or SWR become critical. They handle caching, background revalidation, and loading/error states automatically. Our goal is to generate custom hooks that abstract the API calls, making our components clean and declarative.

The prompt below is designed to create a resilient data layer that can be built even with mock data.

Example Prompt:

“Act as a Data Flow Engineer. Implement a data fetching layer for the frontend using TanStack Query (React Query).

  1. Setup: Create a lib/queryClient.ts file to configure a global QueryClient instance with sensible defaults (e.g., 5-minute cache time, staleTime of 0).
  2. Provider: Generate a components/QueryProvider.tsx ‘use client’ component that wraps its children with the <QueryClientProvider>.
  3. Custom Hook: Create a custom hook hooks/useUserProfile.ts. This hook should use useQuery to fetch data from the /api/user endpoint. The key should be ['user'].
  4. Mock Data Integration: For immediate development utility, if the /api/user endpoint is not yet available, have the hook fall back to returning a mock user object: { name: 'Alex Doe', email: '[email protected]', role: 'Admin' }. This allows the UI to be built and tested without blocking on the backend.”

This prompt demonstrates a key strategy for parallel work: defensive coding. The fallback to mock data is a critical instruction. It means Agent Beta can build and test the entire user profile display component today, without waiting for Agent Alpha to finish the API. When the real endpoint is ready, the only change required is removing the mock data fallback—a five-minute task instead of a multi-day delay.

Parallel Development Simulation: The Mock Data Imperative

The true power of the “Mission” protocol lies in its concurrency. Running Agent Alpha and Agent Beta simultaneously can slash project timelines by 50% or more. But to do this effectively, you need a plan to decouple their dependencies. This is where a dedicated “Mock Data Generation” prompt becomes your most powerful tool. It acts as a temporary contract between your agents.

Example Prompt:

“Act as a Data Simulation Specialist. Create a mocks/handlers.ts file for a mock API layer using a library like MSW (Mock Service Worker). Define handlers for the following endpoints that Agent Alpha is building:

  • GET /api/user: Returns a realistic user profile object.
  • GET /api/dashboard/stats: Returns an array of analytics data points (e.g., revenue, users, active sessions).
  • POST /api/auth/login: Simulates a successful login by returning a dummy JWT token. The responses should mimic the exact data structure and status codes that the real API will eventually provide.”

By running this prompt, you create a “virtual backend” that lives in your frontend codebase. Agent Beta can now develop features that make network requests, receive realistic data, and handle loading and error states, all while Agent Alpha is busy writing database queries and server logic. This is the essence of frictionless development. When Agent Alpha’s endpoint is complete, you simply point your frontend to the real API and remove the mock handlers. The transition is seamless, and both teams worked at 100% efficiency from day one.

Synchronization: Integrating the Agents and Deploying

You’ve successfully delegated the backend and frontend scaffolds to your AI agents. They’ve been working in parallel, generating code at an incredible pace. But now you have two distinct codebases that need to become a single, cohesive application. This is the most critical phase of the “Mission”: synchronization. If this integration is handled poorly, the entire project can fall apart. How do you ensure your frontend knows how to talk to your backend, manage states gracefully, and deploy without a hitch?

This section provides the precise prompts to orchestrate that synchronization. We’ll focus on creating a resilient communication layer, managing environment variables to prevent launch failures, and executing the final “Antigravity” deployment sequence.

The “Handshake” Protocol: Connecting the Agents

The first step in synchronization is establishing a robust communication channel between Agent Beta’s frontend and Agent Alpha’s backend. This “handshake” isn’t just about making an API call; it’s about building a fault-tolerant client that can handle network errors, loading states, and unexpected responses. We’ll use a prompt that instructs the AI to generate a centralized HTTP client.

The Prompt:

“Generate a robust, reusable HTTP client utility for a Next.js 14 frontend application. The client should be built using either axios or a custom fetch wrapper.

  • Configuration: The client must be pre-configured with a base URL from an environment variable (e.g., NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL).
  • Interceptors: Implement request and response interceptors. The request interceptor should attach an Authorization header if a JWT token exists in the client’s state or cookies. The response interceptor should automatically handle 401 (Unauthorized) errors by redirecting the user to the login page.
  • Error Handling: The client should standardize error responses, returning a consistent error object that can be easily consumed by UI components.
  • Usage Example: Provide a simple example of how to use this client to fetch a list of items from a /api/items endpoint.”

Why This Works: This prompt moves beyond a simple fetch call. It asks for a production-grade client with built-in security and error handling logic. The request interceptor is a golden nugget—it automates the process of sending authentication tokens, a common source of bugs. The response interceptor for 401 errors creates a seamless security loop, automatically logging out a user when their token expires. By centralizing this logic, you ensure every API call from Agent Beta’s components is consistent and secure.

Building Resilient UI: Error Boundaries and Optimistic Updates

With the communication layer in place, Agent Beta’s components need to handle the asynchronous nature of data fetching gracefully. A user should never see a blank screen or a frozen UI. This prompt focuses on generating components that manage loading and error states, and even implements an optimistic UI update for a snappy user experience.

The Prompt:

“Create a custom React hook called useOptimisticItems that manages fetching, creating, and updating a list of items.

  • State Management: The hook should return data, isLoading, isError, and a createItem function.
  • Optimistic Update: When createItem is called, it should immediately add the new item to the local data array (showing it to the user instantly), then make the API call. If the API call fails, it should revert the local change and display an error toast.
  • Suspense & Error Boundaries: Wrap the component using this hook in a <Suspense> boundary with a loading spinner and a React <ErrorBoundary> component that displays a user-friendly error message and a retry button.”

Why This Works: This prompt instructs the AI to implement advanced React patterns that dramatically improve perceived performance. The optimistic update is a key technique; users feel the application is instantaneous because they don’t have to wait for a server roundtrip to see their action reflected. The instruction to use Suspense and Error Boundaries demonstrates a deep understanding of modern React. It separates the concerns of loading, success, and failure states from your core component logic, leading to cleaner code and a more robust user experience. This is how you build applications that feel professional and reliable.

Environment Variable Management: The Pre-Launch Checklist

A common failure point in any “Mission” is the merge. When Agent Alpha’s backend (with its required .env variables) meets Agent Beta’s frontend, things can break if variables are missing or misnamed. This prompt creates a system to prevent that, ensuring a smooth integration.

The Prompt:

“Generate two files for environment variable management:

  1. .env.example: Create a template file listing all required environment variables for both the Next.js frontend and a hypothetical Node.js backend. Include comments for each variable explaining its purpose (e.g., # Used for database connection string).
  2. validate-env.js: Write a Node.js script that runs before the development server starts. This script should check if all variables listed in .env.example exist in the developer’s local .env file. If any are missing, the script should log a clear error message to the console and exit the process with a non-zero code, preventing the app from starting in a broken state.”

Why This Works: This is a proactive measure that saves hours of debugging. The .env.example file acts as a single source of truth for your project’s configuration. The validation script is a golden nugget of DevOps best practice. Instead of letting the application fail at runtime with a cryptic “database connection failed” error, it fails at startup with a clear message like “Missing environment variable: DATABASE_URL.” This enforces discipline and makes onboarding new developers to the project seamless.

CI/CD and Google Antigravity Deployment: The Launch Sequence

This is it—the final “Antigravity” launch. With all components built and synchronized, the final step is to automate the deployment. This prompt generates the CI/CD configuration that will build, test, and deploy your Next.js application to Google Cloud Run with every push to the main branch.

The Prompt:

“Generate a cloudbuild.yaml file for Google Cloud Build to deploy a Next.js application to Cloud Run.

  • Build Stage: Use a node builder to run npm ci and npm run build. Ensure the build uses the correct environment variables.
  • Containerize Stage: Use the docker builder to build a Docker image of the Next.js app. The Dockerfile should be optimized for Next.js (e.g., multi-stage build).
  • Deploy Stage: Use the gcr.io/google.com/cloudsdktool/cloud-sdk builder to deploy the image to Cloud Run. Specify the target service name, region, and allow unauthenticated invocations if required.
  • Substitutions: Use build substitutions (e.g., $_SERVICE_NAME) to make the configuration reusable across different environments (staging, production).”

Why This Works: This prompt instructs the AI to create a complete, production-ready deployment pipeline. It’s not just a script; it’s a workflow that embodies the “Antigravity” principle of automation and speed. By specifying a multi-stage Docker build within the context of Cloud Build, you ensure your production image is lean and secure. The use of substitutions ($_SERVICE_NAME) is a professional touch that allows you to use the same pipeline for different environments, reducing configuration drift and making your infrastructure-as-code maintainable. This is the final command that turns your parallel development effort into a live, scalable application.

Mission Control: Advanced Prompts for Optimization & Testing

You’ve built the scaffolding with your agents, but now you need to validate that the structure holds weight. In a high-velocity environment, manual QA is a bottleneck that slows your “mission” to a crawl. The key to scaling is shifting from manual review to AI-driven verification. By treating your AI as a dedicated QA engineer and performance analyst, you can catch bugs and inefficiencies before they ever reach production. This section provides the exact playbook to automate your testing, security, and performance tuning, ensuring your Next.js application is robust, secure, and lightning-fast.

Automating Your Quality Assurance with Unit & Integration Tests

The most time-consuming part of development is often writing the tests to prove your code works. With the right prompts, you can task your AI with generating comprehensive test suites that cover both backend logic and frontend user flows. This not only saves hours but also enforces a discipline of test-driven development (TDD) by default.

Consider the backend API routes Agent Alpha created. You need to ensure they behave as expected under various conditions. Instead of manually writing each test case, you can instruct the AI to build the entire suite.

Your Prompt for Backend Unit Tests:

“Generate a comprehensive Vitest test suite for the user authentication API route (/api/auth/login.ts). Mock the database calls using vi.fn(). Include test cases for:

  1. A successful login with correct credentials, returning a JWT token.
  2. Login attempt with a non-existent user email, returning a 401 status.
  3. Login with a valid email but incorrect password, returning a 401 status.
  4. Handling of a malformed request body (e.g., missing password field), returning a 400 status. Ensure all tests are properly structured with describe and it blocks, and assert on both the HTTP status code and the response body.”

This prompt is powerful because it defines the behavior you want to verify, leaving the implementation details to the AI. It covers the happy path and critical failure points, resulting in a resilient API.

For the frontend, the goal is to verify the user experience. Integration tests are crucial here. Let’s say Agent Beta built a user authentication flow. You need to ensure the entire journey, from login to session persistence, works flawlessly in a browser environment.

Your Prompt for Frontend Integration Tests:

“Generate a Playwright test suite for the user authentication flow created in Agent Alpha’s section. The test should run against a local development server (http://localhost:3000).

  • Test Case 1: Successful Login. Navigate to /login, fill in valid credentials, click submit, and verify redirection to the /dashboard page.
  • Test Case 2: Invalid Password. Attempt login with a valid email but wrong password and assert that an error message is displayed on the page.
  • Test Case 3: Session Persistence. After a successful login, refresh the page and verify that the user remains logged in and is not redirected back to the login screen. Use test.describe to group the tests and expect for all assertions.”

Golden Nugget: A common pitfall with AI-generated Playwright tests is forgetting to mock external services or handle asynchronous UI updates. Always add a prompt directive like “include explicit waits for network responses or UI element visibility” to prevent flaky tests that fail unpredictably.

Performance Tuning Prompts: From Code Smells to Cloud Config

A functional application isn’t necessarily a performant one. “Code smells” like unnecessary re-renders, large bundle sizes, or inefficient database queries can cripple user experience. Your AI can act as a senior performance engineer, spotting these issues and suggesting concrete improvements.

First, ask it to analyze your code for common inefficiencies.

Your Prompt for Code Analysis:

“Act as a senior Next.js performance engineer. Analyze the following component code for potential ‘code smells’ that could lead to performance issues. Specifically, look for:

  • Unnecessary re-renders caused by inline function definitions or object props.
  • Missing dependency arrays in useEffect or useCallback hooks.
  • Client-side data fetching that could be moved to a Server Component.
  • Any instances of fetching data in a loop instead of a single batched request. Provide a refactored version of the code that addresses these issues and explain the performance benefit of each change.”

This prompt forces the AI to think critically about React’s rendering behavior and the Next.js App Router model, delivering actionable refactoring advice.

Next, tackle bundle size. Large components can dramatically slow down initial page loads. You can instruct the AI to identify candidates for lazy loading.

Your Prompt for Dynamic Imports:

“Review the app/dashboard/page.tsx file. Identify any heavy components or third-party libraries (e.g., complex data visualization charts, rich text editors) that are not immediately visible on initial page load. For each identified component, suggest how to refactor it using next/dynamic for code-splitting. Provide the exact code snippet for the dynamic import and explain how it improves the First Contentful Paint (FCP).”

Finally, optimize your infrastructure. If you’re deploying on Google Cloud, cold starts can be a significant latency issue for serverless functions. Your AI can suggest configuration changes to mitigate this.

Your Prompt for Cloud Configuration:

“We are deploying a Next.js application to Google Cloud Run. Analyze our cloudbuild.yaml and Dockerfile. Suggest three specific configuration changes to reduce cold start times. Consider factors like memory allocation, CPU provisioning, and the use of Min Instances. Provide the updated YAML/Dockerfile snippets and quantify the expected impact on startup latency.”

Proactive Security Auditing Before Deployment

Security cannot be an afterthought. Before you push to production, you need a rigorous security audit. Instead of relying solely on manual checklists, you can task your AI with a formal security review, acting as an external penetration tester.

Your Prompt for a Security Audit:

“Act as a security auditor specializing in Next.js and Google Cloud. Review the following codebase for common vulnerabilities:

  1. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS): Check for any use of dangerouslySetInnerHTML without proper sanitization (e.g., using dompurify).
  2. SQL Injection: In the backend API routes, verify that all database queries use parameterized inputs via an ORM like Prisma or Drizzle.
  3. Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF): Are state-changing operations (POST, PUT, DELETE) protected by CSRF tokens or a robust SameSite cookie policy?
  4. Insecure Environment Variables: Scan for any hardcoded secrets or patterns that suggest .env files are being committed to version control. Provide a report listing any potential vulnerabilities found, their risk level (High, Medium, Low), and a recommended remediation step for each.”

Conclusion: Launching the Mission

The “Antigravity” methodology proves its value the moment you see Agent Alpha and Agent Beta working in lockstep. By splitting the setup mission, you’ve effectively eliminated the cognitive friction of context switching. Instead of bouncing between backend configuration and frontend component trees, you maintain a singular, forward momentum. This parallel workflow is the key to slashing your “Time to Hello World” from hours to minutes. The real efficiency gain isn’t just in the code generation itself, but in preserving your mental energy for the complex architectural decisions that truly matter.

This “Mission” framework is a blueprint you can extend far beyond scaffolding. Imagine applying this same logic to your marketing launch: one agent drafts the technical documentation while another generates the promotional social media copy. As AI tools evolve, the ability to delegate distinct, parallel tasks will become the defining skill of a high-impact developer. You’re not just writing code; you’re orchestrating a team of specialized agents.

The future of development isn’t about typing faster; it’s about thinking like a strategist and delegating effectively.

Your next step is to put this into practice. Don’t just read about it—launch your own mission.

  • Copy the prompts provided throughout this guide.
  • Adapt them to your project’s unique requirements—swap the database, change the UI library, or add new features.
  • Launch your mission and experience the speed improvements firsthand.

When you do, share your results and your “Time to Hello World” on social media. Let’s showcase how this next-gen workflow is accelerating development for everyone.

Performance Data

Read Time 4 min
Strategy AI Agent Orchestration
Target Stack Next.js + Serverless
Key Benefit 50% Faster Setup
Method Parallel Prompting

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is the ‘Antigravity’ architecture

It is a serverless-first philosophy using platforms like Google Cloud Run to abstract server management, ensuring sub-100ms cold starts and automatic scaling

Q: How does the ‘Mission’ protocol improve velocity

It simulates a specialized team by running AI agents in parallel for backend and frontend scaffolding, effectively halving the setup duration

Q: Which specific agents are used in this guide

We utilize Agent Alpha for backend architecture (API routes, DB schemas) and Agent Beta for frontend engineering (UI components, layouts)

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