And Now I’ve Vibe-Coded a Native Windows 11 App ⭐

The Build 2026 keynote was overly-long, in keeping with tradition. But there was some good news for Windows developers, too, and that's been unusual in the modern era.

Among that good news was something called Windows Developer Skills, a collection of WinUI agents and AI skills for Windows app development. Depending on where you're at, that either means something or it doesn't. And to be fair, I'm still catching up on the ever-evolving language of AI, so it took me a bit to realize the implications here. But the term "skills" indicates that this thing is a way to use AI agents to vibe code a modern Windows app using WinUI.

Interesting timing.

This past April, I completed a years-long coding project called WinUIpad (originally .NETpad) and I was only able to get it over the finish line thanks to AI; in this case Anthropic Claude and Stardock Clairvoyance. And this year has seen the rapid evolution of vibe coding, initially a misunderstood pipe dream, into something that developers and, increasingly, even normal people can use to create custom, personal apps of their own. Two weeks ago, Google announced a major update to AI Studio that lets you create native Android apps using this web-based IDE. I went on to use this tool to create a web-based Markdown app, an Android Markdown app, and then, yes, more Markdown apps of various kinds using AI Studio, Android Studio, and Anthropic Claude.

What can I say, these things excite me. But where Google made its AI Studio announcement alongside approximately 1700 other announcements at Google I/O 2026, the latest installment of its annual developer show, Microsoft announced Windows Development Skills alongside approximately 1700 other announcements at Build 2026, the latest installment of its annual developer show. And as with the Google announcement, I quickly went from curious to distracted and then to needing to try it out, and as quickly as possible.

But first, let me explain what's happening with Windows Development Skills and, more broadly, with all the vibe coding improvements we're seeing this year.
2026 is the year of CLIs
Command line interfaces, or CLIs, are making an incredible comeback this year thanks to AI and the ease with each autonomous AI agents can interact with them. To be clear, this isn't about winding back the clock, as humans will continue to interact with apps and services using GUIs and, increasingly, natural language. It's part of a broader push industry-wide to get us from the way things are to the way things will be.

Transitions take time. Computer use functionality in AI chatbots is like screen scraping, a low-tech approach to get at the functionality in apps or at data wherever it's stored. But traditional GUIs on your computers, phones, and other devices, including apps, are evolving to meet the needs of this new era too, and that will eventually diminish if not eliminate the need for computer use in AI. This is the world of so-called "semantic apps,"...