IdeaDen is an AI-powered platform built with Next.js 16, Express 5, TypeScript, and MongoDB that helps developers move from a vague idea to a structured, build-ready project plan. Developers can generate personalized project ideas, transform any idea into a comprehensive 7-section PRD, and expand the PRD into five execution documents covering System Design, Site Map & User Flow, UI/UX Guidelines, Data Model, and Implementation Plan. The platform also provides an AI blog generator with customizable templates, tones, lengths, and SEO keywords. IdeaDen uses Google Gemini AI for content generation, Better Auth with JWT/JWKS for secure cross-service authentication, TanStack Query for data management, and Stripe for Pro subscriptions with webhook-based role synchronization. The frontend and backend run as separate Vercel deployments communicating through authenticated HTTP APIs.
Designed and developed a complete AI-powered workflow that transforms project ideas into PRDs and five build-ready technical documents
Integrated Google Gemini AI through dedicated generation services for structured project ideas, PRDs, blog content, and project documentation
Built the PRD generation system with seven structured sections covering strategy, users, requirements, design, execution, planning, and risk
Implemented incremental Project Docs generation so individual documents are persisted as they are completed, allowing partial generations to survive API timeouts
Designed a distributed Next.js and Express architecture with secure JWT-based communication and remote JWKS verification across independent Vercel deployments
Implemented Stripe Checkout, customer portal, subscription management, and webhooks to synchronize Pro and Free user roles server-side
Built usage controls with per-user generation cooldowns, daily quotas for Free users, and unlimited generation access for Pro users
Developed community discovery with full-text search, visibility and duration filtering, sorting, pagination, and related project recommendations
Created personal and administrative analytics dashboards with technology distribution, blog topic distribution, and 14-day generation activity charts using Recharts
Implemented content de-duplication to prevent generating similar ideas and content from a user's previous generations
Designing a secure authentication boundary between Better Auth on the frontend and JWT/JWKS verification on the Express backend
Building reliable multi-stage AI generation workflows where long-running Project Docs generation can partially complete and persist before a timeout
Managing AI usage limits, cooldowns, Free/Pro quotas, and subscription state across frontend, backend, and Stripe webhooks
Structuring AI-generated output into consistent PRDs and technical documentation while supporting different generation types and content formats
Add AI-assisted project refinement and iterative editing for generated PRDs and project documents
Introduce project workspaces for organizing ideas, PRDs, and generated documentation
Add additional AI providers and model selection for different generation requirements
Enable collaborative project planning and sharing between developers and teams