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From Git clone to prompt: how AI changed the starting line for developers

Prompt-driven development is a new approach where projects begin with natural-language prompts instead of cloning repos. Developers describe their intent, and AI scaffolds functional code, moving the starting point from setup tasks to live project creation.

For over a decade, starting a new project began with opening GitHub, cloning a repo, and wrestling with setup before anything appeared on the screen. Today, many projects don’t begin with a repository at all. They begin with a sentence.

Thanks to AI, prompts are the new entry point to building. This shift marks the rise of prompt-driven development where instead of typing git clone, developers simply write out their intent:

*“Give me a React app with authentication and a blog.” *

The tools and workflows that adapt to this reality will define the next era of software.

The starting line has moved in AI development

AI copilots have proven they can write solid code quickly. That was the first surprise. But the more interesting shift isn’t about how fast code is written: it’s about where the developer journey begins.

Setup shouldn’t mean slogging through dozens of framework, dependency, and config decisions before you can validate an idea.

When intent becomes the entry point, developers aren’t asking: “Can I get boilerplate code faster?” They’re asking: “How quickly can I get my idea working?”

The value has moved upstream. Writing code is now easy. The challenge is carrying intent through generation, validation, and into a running project your team can review, test, and iterate on.

The gap no one’s closing

Most of the ecosystem hasn’t caught up to this shift. Tools like Cursor and Windsurf highlight the editor experience. Their focus is solving how you refine the code inside an IDE once you have a prompt.

While useful, it stops short of the bigger question: how do you get from prompt to production?

Even platforms that talk about “workflows” rarely address prompts as the new starting point. Nobody has staked a clear claim on prompt-driven development as the true starting point of a flow. The conversation still orbits around “AI-assisted coding,” as if the editor were the only arena where change is happening.

That’s where the gap lives… and where opportunities exist.

Get from prompt to production

For developers today, the hard part isn’t creating snippets of code. It’s turning those snippets into something real, shareable, and production-ready.

The proof is already here. AI codegens like Bolt, ChatGPT, Windsurf, and Builder deploy projects to Netlify. When developers generate a project in those environments, the next logical step is sending it to Netlify for previews, collaboration, and deployment.

Prompts already produce code, and Netlify is the place where that code becomes a live project.

Why this matters for everyone who builds

If you’re a seasoned developer, prompts save time by replacing setup with intent. If you’re a new developer, prompts make building accessible in a way that cloning repos never did.

Imagine describing what you want in plain language, seeing AI scaffold the project, and then – without touching dependencies or config – having a live site you can actually share.

This shift means that winning tools won’t just generate boilerplate. They’ll carry ideas from “I want to build X” all the way to “Here’s the link, go check it out.”

Prompts as the new standard

Developers used to measure tools by how quickly they could get running after cloning a repo. In a prompt-first era, the benchmark changes:

  • How fast can I get from intent to a working preview?
  • How easily can I share that preview with teammates?
  • How directly can this project ship into production?

These are the questions shaping developer expectations now. The shift isn’t about productivity, but about removing friction between an idea and a live site.

The future isn’t about AI generating ever-cleaner code in an IDE. It’s about intent becoming the new unit of work and the platforms that can carry that intent into reality.

Netlify believes the future of building on the web is prompt-driven development. Prompts are the new git clone – the starting line where ideas become live sites.

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