ToolTwist website Designer, rebuilt with AI

Tooltwist was our flagship product about 20 years ago — a Java based tool for drag and drop creation of functionally rich websites. While we have no wish to resurrect this product (websites are simpler these days), we chose to reproduce the tool as an experiment to test the capabilities of Claude Code and embedding an MCP server. With hundreds of widget types and thousands of pages, this should have been a daunting task.

The challenge

Using AI to convert a complex design tool, written in Java/JSP with a complex XML data-driven user interface.

The original effort was 2–3 man years.

Redevelop with AI

• 5 days to 40% product readiness
• Proof of AI capability: 100%

Tech

Java/J2EE → Next.js + MCP server + Playwright.

AI framework

Prompt engineering + bespoke skills and agents.