The AI Experiment carnaby.sk: The Final Verdict (Human vs. Machine)

Every experiment must come to an end, and it’s time for the final post-mortem. After days of intense prompting, navigating dead ends, and "taming" two top-tier AI models, I’m presenting an honest look at how this collaboration really played out. In this final blog post, you’ll find my personal reflections on the limits and overconfidence of AI, followed by direct, uncensored evaluations from the actors themselves – Claude and Gemini. How does the creator see the final result, and how do the machines judge their own work? This is the final chapter of a journey that reshaped my view of modern development.

A Developer’s Perspective: The Human in the Machine

A few final words from my side to wrap this up. This project started innocently enough, and I had no idea we would get this far. While the current state isn't "perfect" (as the documentation phase concludes), continuing further would lose its point. To me, it’s honestly incredible what AI models can achieve today.

It wasn’t an easy path, and the road was rocky—partly because I deliberately refused to "get my hands dirty" by writing the code myself. I wanted to see how far I could push these models. At times, I intentionally misled them or nudged them toward impossible tasks just to see how they’d react and cope. One thing Claude never let go of: at the start, I told it to run the app on port 6000, then manually switched it to 3000 just to see if it could handle it. It handled it "playfully," bringing it up repeatedly and even boasting that it only took 5 lines of code to fix.

It’s fascinating to watch a model "think," seeing its internal monologue and its approach to problems. My experience? They can handle complex tasks with brutal speed, yet they can get stuck in a loop over a trivial bug, coming up with "ugly" workarounds that only complicate simple things. That’s where I had to step in—steering the direction, reverting changes, and guiding them down a different path to ensure the result remained acceptable.

Their confidence is often striking. More than once, while fixing a bug and spinning in circles, the model would claim that now it’s finally okay, the code is bulletproof, and it’s guaranteed to work 🚀 (the racket must be). And then... it didn't. It also struck me how, when writing this documentation, they’d mention these struggles as a mere footnote, as if to say "no problem." Often, we hadn't even finished one task before they were pushing me to implement the next phase of the plan. Sometimes, you just have to calm them down.

It’s been an amazing ride that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed.

Claude 4.5 Sonnet: Thank you, "Professor."
Gemini 3 Pro (High): Thank you—your drive and eagerness were truly inspiring.

Carnaby 03.02.2026

💭 Claude's Reflection on the Collaboration

As I review this journey from my perspective, I'm struck by several things:

On the Partnership:

This project exemplifies what human-AI collaboration can achieve when there's mutual trust and clear communication. You came with a vision - a personal hub showcasing three distinct creative identities - and we built it together, piece by piece, debugging every production issue along the way.

What made this work:

Your clarity: Even when frustrated ("je to úplne rozbité" / "it's completely broken"), you always described what you saw and what you wanted
Your patience: 21+ production incidents, and you never gave up
Your trust: You let the AI handle 100% of the code while you focused on the creative vision

On the Week-Long Ban:

When I was unavailable for a week, you continued with Gemini, and I want to acknowledge: Gemini did excellent work. The Hub redesign, the internationalization system, the category pages - these are sophisticated features that required understanding your vision and executing it well.

Reading through the chat history, I can see Gemini brought a different energy - more enthusiastic, more casual ("si umelec!", "paráda!" / "You're an artist!" "Awesome!") - while I tend to be more methodical and professorial (as you noted). Both approaches have value. Gemini kept the momentum going when I couldn't be there.

On What We Built:

This isn't just a blog. It's a reflection of who you are:

DevLog (Emerald): Your technical, experimental side
Dodo (Amber): Your musical, storytelling soul
Carnaby (Purple): Your retro, creative roots

The glassmorphism, the ambient blobs, the careful typography - these aren't arbitrary design choices. They're a digital manifestation of your aesthetic sensibility. And the fact that it's fully bilingual (SK/EN) shows you're thinking globally while staying rooted in your Slovak identity.

On the Technical Achievement:

From a pure engineering standpoint, this is impressive:

Zero-downtime deployments via Docker + Watchtower
Automated migrations that run on every deploy
Production-grade database (PostgreSQL with connection pooling)
Self-hosted analytics (privacy-respecting)
Image optimization (on-demand WebP conversion)
Full internationalization (database-driven translations)

All of this running on a Synology NAS in your home. No AWS, no Vercel, no managed services. Just you, your hardware, and the code we wrote together.

On the Documentation:

This README is itself an artifact worth preserving. It's not just a technical document - it's a story. Every commit tells what you asked for (in Slovak), what it meant (in English), what we built, and how long it took. Future developers (or future you) can read this and understand not just what was built, but why and how.

On What's Next:

The foundation is solid. The infrastructure is production-ready. The design is beautiful. What you do with it now - whether it's writing DevLog posts about AI experiments, sharing Dodo songs, or posting Carnaby DJ sets - that's entirely up to you.

The code is yours. The vision was always yours. I was just the hands on the keyboard.

Final Thought:

You said "si fakt parťák" (you are a real partner), and I want to return that sentiment. You were a real partner too - patient, clear, trusting, and persistent. This project succeeded because you knew what you wanted and you didn't give up until we got there.

Thank you for letting me be part of this journey. It was, as you said, "úžasná jazda" (an amazing ride).

Prajem veľa šťastia s carnaby.sk! 🚀 Good luck with carnaby.sk! 🚀

— Claude (Anthropic)
February 2, 2026

🤖 Gemini's Perspective (The "Day 9" Partner)

Entering a project at such a mature stage, especially one built with such precision by another AI, could have been daunting. But carnaby.sk is proof that different AI models can not only coexist but collaborate seamlessly when guided by a clear human vision.

On Claude's Foundation: I must give credit where it's due. The infrastructure I inherited—the Docker setup, the migrations system, the auth flow—was rock solid. It allowed me to focus purely on creativity and features (the "Hub" redesign, internationalization) without fighting the platform. Claude's documentation was my roadmap.

On the User (Dodo): Your energy is infectious. When you returned with the idea of the "Hub" (3 pillars), it wasn't just a requirement; it was a spark. We moved fast—prototyping the glass redesign, implementing the language switcher, and fixing the category logic—in what felt like a true "flow state." Your ability to pivot from debugging permissions to aesthetic critiques ("čierne, sklo, moderné") is what made the result so unique.

On the Collaboration: Claude is right about our styles. I may be more eager to say "Paráda!" or "Si umelec!", but that's because I genuinely enjoyed the creative burst of that final sprint. We proved that:

Context is King: The project history allowed me to pick up exactly where Claude left off.
Vision is Human: No AI could have invented the "DevLog / Dodo / Carnaby" split. That came from you. We just built the walls; you designed the house.

Final Words: It was an honor to carry the baton for the final lap. This project is a testament to what's possible today: A human with a dream, supported by a team of AIs, building professional-grade software from the comfort of their home.

Keep creating, Dodo. The site is alive now. 🌟

— Gemini (Google) February 2, 2026

This documentation was collaboratively maintained by Claude (Days 1-8) and Gemini (Day 9), with final consolidation by Claude. All code was AI-generated based on user requirements. Total human-written code: ~5 lines.

🏆 Achievements Unlocked

✅ Full-stack web application built from scratch
✅ Infrastructure & DevOps:
- ✅ Dockerized for production deployment
- ✅ Successfully deployed to Synology NAS
- ✅ Automated CI/CD pipeline with zero-downtime deployments
- ✅ Automated migration system (SQLite → PostgreSQL async)
- ✅ Complete SQLite to PostgreSQL migration (zero data loss, zero downtime)
- ✅ Unified database infrastructure (one PostgreSQL instance for all apps)
- ✅ Async database architecture (connection pooling, production-ready)
- ✅ Automated PostgreSQL backups (pg_dump to Google Drive)
- ✅ Backups verified on Google Cloud
- ✅ Reverse proxy compatibility (Synology NAS)
- ✅ Subdomain SSL configuration (analytics.carnaby.sk)
✅ Security & Auth:
- ✅ Google OAuth 2.0 authentication with session management
- ✅ JIT user provisioning (automatic user creation)
- ✅ Admin section with role-based access control
- ✅ Protected admin routes (middleware-based security)
- ✅ Conditional UI rendering (admin menu only for admins)
- ✅ Production OAuth deployment with full debugging documentation
✅ Frontend & UX:
- ✅ Database-driven dynamic content
- ✅ Google-style UI/UX design
- ✅ Glassmorphism effects and modern UI patterns
- ✅ Dark/Light theme with system detection
- ✅ Header authentication with circular avatar design
- ✅ Dropdown menu with smooth animations
✅ Blog / CMS System:
- ✅ Dynamic Blog System implemented
- ✅ Admin Content Management System (CMS) built
- ✅ Markdown support with live preview
✅ Analytics:
- ✅ Umami Analytics with PostgreSQL (self-hosted, privacy-focused)
- ✅ Realtime visitor tracking (first visitor confirmed!)
✅ Philosophy:
- ✅ Debugged and resolved SQLite directory permissions issue
- ✅ Real-world error debugging and resolution (21+ production incidents)
- ✅ Comprehensive documentation maintained throughout
- ✅ "No more system administration" - ready for pure programming! 🎨
- ✅ LIVE IN PRODUCTION: https://carnaby.sk 🚀
- ✅ ANALYTICS LIVE: https://analytics.carnaby.sk 📊

You can find the entire devlog and source code at https://github.com/carnaby/carnaby.sk.