Sharebox started from a simple frustration: Plex and Jellyfin are overkill when you just want to send someone a movie link. The project took shape over a few intense days of work, with an AI as a permanent pair. Not vibe coding, not blind delegation — something in between, and quite different from both.
What I learned about this way of working doesn't match what you usually read. Not the naive enthusiasm ("AI codes for you"), not the posture scepticism ("it's worthless"). It's more nuanced, and very visible in the git history.
A project, not a prompt
The stack choice was deliberate and contrarian: pure PHP 8.1, SQLite in WAL mode, zero external dependencies. No framework, no composer at the start. The AI pushed for Laravel several times. I said no.
That's where real pair programming begins. The AI optimises for what it's seen most in training data: Laravel projects, ORMs, abstraction layers. It's right 80% of the time. For a self-hosted file sharing tool where the main constraint is "no system requirements except PHP and SQLite", it's wrong.
