Developer Built 33 Apps in One Month for Netlify's Hot AR Summer Challenge

A developer in Los Angeles participated in Netlify's July 'Hot AR Summer' challenge, which invited builders to create small apps using the platform's Agent Runners tool. He initially dismissed the challenge as too time-consuming but ended up submitting 33 apps over the course of the month, out of more than 200 total entries. A defining constraint he set for himself was avoiding random number generation, making every app's output fully deterministic based on user input — meaning no AI inference was needed at runtime. This approach kept his total AI-related costs to just $44 for the entire month. His final app was built from his phone at a restaurant table between dinner courses, but missed the submission deadline after the entry window had already closed.