I Rebuilt My Karaoke App So Everyone's Phone Could Be a Remote

Before: the idea worked, but the product still felt like a video app squeezed into a karaoke use case.

Ask Mode helped me understand the old data flow before editing code.

For larger work, I used Plan Mode before execution.

Instead of saying:

"Make these two projects cleaner."

I asked for a real migration plan:

"Merge vkara and vkara-api into one monorepo, keep history, use Bun workspace, find shared types, and move contracts into shared packages."

Plan Mode turned a vague refactor into a safer migration path.

That became my loop:

Think → Ask → Plan → Execute → Verify → Repeat

For bugs, I pasted exact TypeScript errors or Docker logs.

For UI work, I used screenshots and described what felt wrong.

For architecture questions, I asked for alternatives before touching code.

That was the real upgrade.

In the first version, I mostly asked AI to generate code.

In the comeback, I asked GitHub Copilot to help me investigate, compare, plan, refactor, verify, and explain trade-offs.

The final result is still not perfect.

But now I know what actually matters.

Not “AI lyrics” or some huge feature that sounds cool in a roadmap.

The real problems are smaller and more human: who is allowed to skip, who added this song, whose turn is next, how to stop one person from filling the whole queue, how to rejoin quickly when someone closes their phone, and how to bring back the same queue for the next karaoke night.

YouTube already gives us the videos.

VKara should make the room feel calm.

But VKara is no longer just a prototype I keep for myself.

It is something I can open on a TV, hand my phone to a friend, and say:

"Pick the next song."

And honestly, that already feels like a win.