Caffeine is a new platform related to vibe coding that was first showcased at the WCS in Zurich on June 3rd and is currently planned to be released at the "Hello, Self-Writing Internet" event in San Francisco on July 15th.
Now, most developers at least "vibe code" at some point and collaborate with AI integrated into their tools.
Caffeine pioneers a related paradigm of creating, updating, and managing "self-written" applications end-to-end through natural language conversations with artificial intelligence, without any technical input. The platform is accessible via desktop or mobile web browsers.
When people hear about self-writing, it's easy to imagine "this won't work," or "the application must be hindered in some way," but after using this technology, or even studying the online demonstration, the objections quickly disappear.
The key change that makes Caffeine possible is that the platform is built using a novel technology stack specifically designed to support self-writing applications.
This technology stack is very appealing because it has almost nothing in common with traditional technology stacks and requires some major repositioning to understand how it works. Although this new technology stack is very unique and its operation relies on some advanced computer science, Caffeine makes it easy to experience and understand the power and value of this approach.
The purpose of self-writing is to enable non-technical people to widely participate in the creation and management of consumer and enterprise-level applications. Although some clever hooks are provided for Vibe programmers, these hooks will mainly only be used by those who are proficient in business services.
The potential uses for this technology are obvious for entrepreneurs who want to start their own businesses, small businesses who want to build services such as booking portals and e-commerce experiences, businesses who need fast and economical CRM and ERP functionality, and developing countries, but this technology will also bring surprises, such as enabling consumers to explore new online models, such as hyperlocal social networks dedicated to family members, or hyperlocal esports where friends and colleagues compete.
There are many fascinating elements to the "self-writing" technology stack applied by Caffeine.
For example, it includes an extraordinary new programming language for artificial intelligence that introduces a cutting-edge software technology called "orthogonal persistence" that eliminates the conceptual distance between logic and data.
This language enables artificial intelligence to create more complex backend logic before errors and coding retries make its speed unacceptable, while combined with a construction framework, it guarantees that errors made by artificial intelligence during application upgrades will not cause application data loss - reflecting the power of using technology to solve core challenges of self-writing platforms.
The Caffeine platform is powered by a set of carefully tuned AI models that build a unique serverless cloud environment that supports orthogonal persistence and provides other advantages.
Serverless clouds are created by mathematically secure networks, which is an important creative step.
The technology involved is mature and has been developed by a Swiss non-profit organization over many years. It is expected to spend approximately $500 million on development by 2025.
The protocol that creates the underlying network has special mathematical properties that guarantee the security and resilience of the hosted applications. On the one hand, this further simplifies the work that AI must perform, and on the other hand, it helps prevent AI errors from causing disasters.
Autonomously written applications are "tamper-proof," meaning they are able to guarantee that the correct logic runs according to the correct data and operate securely without traditional network security measures. They are also "unstoppable," meaning that within the failure range of the underlying network, the logic they write is guaranteed to run, and the data is guaranteed to be available, making them more secure and further simplifying the work of artificial intelligence.
It is expected that most applications created using Caffeine will be deployed to a public network based on this technology called "Internet Computer." Enterprise-level technology UTOPIA is brewing, which can create sovereign clouds through private networks that can run on sovereign hardware or on existing cloud services.
Autonomously written applications created by the Caffeine platform are sovereign because the application owner fully owns the underlying software and data involved, and the application runs on a cloud network, not constrained by closed and proprietary cloud services, or even by a single data center that may shut them down or change their terms.
The "Self-Writing Internet" (SWI) reflects the vision of these sovereign applications becoming more prevalent and the creation and ownership of online applications and services becoming more democratic and decentralized.
You can learn more, watch the technical demonstration video from June 3rd, register for early access to Caffeine, and register for the "Hello, Self-Writing Internet" event in San Francisco on July 15th at caffeine.ai.
Below I have copied from the website (The Self-Writing Internet Manifesto) which reflects the full vision, mission and spirit of the project and further explores the technology.
The Self-Writing Internet Manifesto
Introducing the self-writing Internet
What if someone could imagine a website, online application, or service and create it by having a natural language conversation with artificial intelligence? What if this online functionality simply appeared on a URL, was immediately usable, and could be improved through ongoing dialogue? What if the conversation could create and update important production services - services that might support a large number of users or customers - and guarantee that changes and updates made by artificial intelligence at chat speed would never cause accidental data loss?
This is a brave new world of "self-writing applications," an extension of the popular "vibe coding" paradigm where human developers collaborate with artificial intelligence integrated into their tools. The difference with self-writing applications is that applications and services are created end-to-end entirely through natural language conversations with artificial intelligence, enabling non-technical people with Internet access to take on the role of an entire technical team.
An important variation of the "self-writing application" paradigm is the "self-writing Internet," which envisions a world where the online features we use every day are increasingly created through these conversations. Part of this vision is that websites, applications, and services typically run on secure, decentralized networks as part of the public Internet, rather than running on closed proprietary platforms such as cloud services.
In this vision, online functionality is sovereign because application creators own the underlying software and data, and their applications cannot be shut down by proprietary platform operators that may stop services or change their terms.
Global social impact
The autonomously written Internet has the potential to bring tremendous opportunities and transformations.
People will find that they can create exciting new online features, such as hyperlocal social networks dedicated to large families, where they can add large, hilarious emojis to photos in shared galleries, or create hyperlocal esports where they can compete with friends for digital asset rewards.
As non-technical people gradually master newly acquired engineering superpowers, these new types of online functionality will rapidly follow the mass production of basic functionality such as personal branding websites and party planning portals.
Entrepreneurs lacking funds can finally launch the Web3 shared economy applications they want to achieve. Small and medium-sized businesses will be able to create and update excellent e-commerce experiences, while the cost and time required are only a fraction of what they used to be. Large enterprises will apply this model to create products such as CRM and ERP.
School districts will find they can quickly create fundraising platforms they couldn't afford before, and NGOs will quickly create a system to aid refugees as part of a rapid response to natural disasters, the possibilities are endless.
At the same time, this model will bring unprecedented benefits to developing countries, whose governments and businesses often cannot afford to be tied to foreign SaaS services, which also poses sovereignty challenges to them, and they also lack sufficient local technical expertise to build the services they need. Even if they are able to build the services they need, another key challenge is that they lack the cybersecurity expertise to protect their functionality and data from threats, resulting in data breaches and ransomware attacks succeeding.
The self-writing Internet will allow anyone with a networked smartphone to create online functionality. While creating complex applications and services requires clear and accurate conversations with artificial intelligence, a significant proportion of the 5 billion people with networked devices will be able to create simple personal applications, reflecting the scale of future empowerment.
The self-writing Internet will enhance the decentralization of technology and democratize the act of creation, but an important consideration is the impact that self-writing may have on software engineering, user experience, and design work. We believe that, like the Internet, self-writing will create many new high-value jobs.
Self-writing will lead to a proliferation of applications and services, the number of which will grow exponentially. While most applications and services will be created without traditional "manual" skills, a large proportion will benefit from human assistance. Ultimately, the creation of a large number of new applications and services will drive overall growth in the demand for skilled developers and designers.
Outside of the technical field, the freedom and economic benefits brought by self-writing will also create non-technical jobs. People will be qualified for entrepreneurship, and their businesses will employ people in various positions. Businesses will become more efficient, driving economic development. Governments will also be able to use technology to provide citizens with a better operating environment, reduce friction, and accelerate progress.
Key Technical Challenges
Introduction
Realizing the vision of the Self-Writing Internet requires overcoming unique technical challenges, however, solutions already exist, and the Self-Writing Internet is currently running and in use in a compelling initial form - about to be widely adopted by the public, before continuing to emphasize what has worked, we must first consider the key challenges.
First, the self-writing Internet requires powerful basic artificial intelligence models that can write code. The artificial intelligence industry has made remarkable progress in this regard and continues to develop. The main hosting solutions include ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, as well as major open source solutions, such as DeepSeek and Llama models, which can be self-hosted and can be arbitrarily adjusted and fine-tuned according to specific uses, but enabling models to effectively write code is only one of the challenges.
Overall, there are two major challenges. First, to provide artificial intelligence with an exclusive programming environment that is specifically designed to support the efficient and error-free creation of self-writing application features and ensure that errors made by artificial intelligence do not lead to disasters - such as data loss during application upgrades. Second, to provide artificial intelligence with a platform to deploy user applications without the need for manual support in key areas such as network security and resilience.
Overall, by examining the key challenges involved, it is clear that effective self-writing may always require the use of completely new technology stacks specifically designed for specific purposes.
To promote the vision of fully self-writing, these new dedicated stacks should also make it possible to create autonomous applications.
Security and Resilience
In the context of autonomous writing, a key challenge facing traditional technology stacks is that they are insecure by default. When we build application features on these technology stacks, we must also ensure their security ourselves. To achieve this, we build layers of defense by carefully configuring platform components such as databases, web servers, and cloud frameworks such as Kubernetes to enhance their security.
Then, we enhance our hardened traditional stack with network security defenses such as firewalls and intrusion monitoring, use anti-malware to check third-party software for hidden malicious logic, and try to keep packages up to date by installing security patches.
A simple mistake, or a slight failure of the network security system, can lead to hacking, and sensitive data and systems can be encrypted and leaked by ransomware. In addition, as hackers ironically learn how to use artificial intelligence to achieve their goals, cybersecurity challenges are increasing.
The security process of traditional technology stacks is so complex that millions of pages of technical documentation have been written to assist practitioners. Entrusting these responsibilities to frequently error-prone artificial intelligence models is undoubtedly a daunting task.
However, even if artificial intelligence can be given such responsibilities, the task of managing security will slow down the speed of artificial intelligence, perhaps preventing it from working at chat speed, thereby reducing the self-writing experience.
Resilience is another issue when building on a traditional stack. Process engineers must invest time in designing failover systems and other mechanisms to ensure that applications remain online, and upgrades are often an all-hands-on-deck process involving complex synchronization, such as reconfiguring databases, replacing custom code, and personnel must be ready to roll back changes if something goes wrong.
On traditional stacks, achieving resilient applications and performing application upgrades is a major task.
Today, more than 5 billion people around the world have networked smartphones. A large number of autonomously developed applications means that traditional technology stacks will not be usable because security and resilience cannot fully rely on human intervention.
"Orthogonal Persistence", what the heck is that?
"Orthogonal persistence" is a technical-sounding term that refers to a cutting-edge software technology that greatly simplifies the development of applications and software. One of its goals and purposes is that it focuses on the essence of "what must be created" while greatly reducing the work associated with "how to" assemble the system.
Generally speaking, the work involved in creating an application can be divided into "what to do" and "how to do it." "What to do" involves the user interaction experience and the basic processing of data, which define the essence of the application. "How to do it" refers to the actual process of combining custom code with platform building blocks (such as databases, web servers, and cloud orchestration frameworks). "How to do it" focuses on how the technology stack generates the overall system that supports the application, rather than the implementation of the functionality that defines the application itself.
A significant problem with traditional technology stacks is that the investment in "how to do" during the construction process often far exceeds the investment in "what to do." In fact, as many developers have confirmed, project work typically devotes more than 90% of its energy to "how to do" and only 10% of its energy to "what to do."
Usually, this is caused by the complexity of the application logic, as data needs to be passed in and out of storage repositories such as databases, and sometimes due to the difficulty of different platform components to interoperate, leading to old problems such as "dependency hell," and other ladders of problems that require human intervention to solve.
Looking at the needs of artificial intelligence to work independently in a self-writing environment, where artificial intelligence must create complex functions at chat speed, we can see that allowing artificial intelligence to focus on "what to do" will make its work faster.
Furthermore, eliminating the complexity of "how to do it" will make it easier for functionality to work smoothly the first time and free up valuable space in the inference context window, thereby further increasing the efficiency of artificial intelligence.
Of course, the desire to reduce the cost of "how to" has a long history. In the field of traditional technology stacks, this is reflected in the increasing popularity of serverless cloud platforms such as AWS Lambda, where developers can create code that runs in a seamless environment, the underlying server instances are abstracted away, and the system itself handles challenges such as scaling, security, and resilience.
However, these environments do not solve the challenge of accessing and persisting (i.e., storing) data, and serverless code must call something like a database server.
Orthogonal persistence is a new technical approach that contains an important innovation, which is to eliminate the conceptual distance between serverless logic and data, making them almost one, which greatly simplifies the "how to" links involved in software development.
When writing serverless software for orthogonally persistent environments, its data is automatically persisted in its own logical abstraction. More specifically, data exists in its own variables, data types, and collections. Creating a platform that supports orthogonal persistence requires advanced computer science, but using it can greatly simplify software development.
Simplification enables artificial intelligence to run faster and evolve further without restriction. In addition, it makes its work verification (whether manual or machine) easier. Therefore, orthogonal persistence can play an extremely important role in self-writing environments.
Developers interested in seeing what orthogonal persistence looks like in code can take a look at this web application that stores files for users (the link opens an online IDE):
https://icp.ninja/editor?t=NL8c
New Technology Stack for Self-Writing
Internet Computer (and Internet Computer Protocol)
For those interested in the self-writing vision, the good news is that as a result of ongoing major R&D efforts, the first real solution has emerged.
The DFINITY Foundation is a Swiss non-profit organization founded in 2016 (after the DFINITY project was announced in the summer of 2015) dedicated to pursuing a special form of the "World Computer" vision.
The World Computer vision involves decentralized networks hosting code and data, and extending the public Internet so that it can natively host applications and services, from simple features for personal purposes to social networks, enterprise systems, and financial ecosystems - without the use of servers and proprietary cloud services, avoiding dependencies and lock-in.
By 2025, DFINITY has spent approximately $500 million, primarily on the complex computer science and engineering work involved in the public network known as the "Internet Computer."
The Internet Computer is a decentralized network created by the "Internet Computer Protocol" (ICP) that integrates thousands of dedicated computers from around the world that are owned and operated at scale by "node providers" (including companies, financial institutions, and individuals) independent of traditional data centers.
ICP combines these machines, based on advanced mathematics and hardware decentralization, to create a single seamless serverless cloud environment. Because this environment is created by a mathematically secure network, it has many special properties.
Thanks to the power of mathematics and advanced computer science, applications can run end-to-end on the Internet Computer without network security protection because the network makes them "tamper-proof." Even social media services that maintain digital asset pools can operate successfully without network security measures even when the public Internet presents a highly hostile threat environment. These services allow users to transfer digital assets using novel mechanisms such as chat.
The mathematical ICP protocol gives the Internet Computer a characteristic called "Byzantine fault tolerance," which provides hard security guarantees as long as a sufficient proportion of its underlying node hardware (the machines that the protocol integrates to create the network and serverless cloud environment) is not controlled by attackers. Unless there is an error in the implementation of the special "client software" that nodes run in the ICP network, hackers cannot break through the platform provided by the network, because the laws of mathematics are firm (for example, 2+2=5 can never be true).
If you are interested in the computer science that makes this possible, you can find a series of papers at:
https://internetcomputer.org/library
Another powerful feature of the environment related to addressing resilience needs in a self-writing setup is that as long as a sufficient proportion of the network's underlying nodes are operating normally, the correct software logic hosting the application can be guaranteed to run and its data is guaranteed to be available, which is why some call them "unstoppable."
In the context of self-writing, there is no need to consider security and resilience, which alleviates the enormous burden on artificial intelligence to work independently without human assistance, but the Internet Computer goes even further.
One of the core goals of the Internet Computer has always been to reshape the essence of software, addressing the complexities of developing applications on essentially centralized traditional software stacks. By leveraging the unique construction of the cloud, the Internet Computer provides a serverless environment with "orthogonal persistence," which is exactly what artificial intelligence needs.
The Internet Computer project saw the importance of self-writing and believed that self-writing platforms would become the technology stack of the future. Since self-writing meets the key goals of the World Computer vision, the project is committed to realizing the self-writing Internet. As work progresses, "Internet Computer 2.0" was born.
Since its inception, developers have been able to write backend code that runs on the Internet Computer using popular programming languages that can be compiled into WebAssembly (a public standard for virtual machines and low-level bytecode formats). However, since 2018, DFINITY has also developed its own programming language and its accompanying framework specifically for the Internet Computer environment, called Motoko.
We decided to develop the Motoko programming language and framework to meet the needs of both artificial intelligence code writing and human developers. Motoko became the first programming language specifically designed to meet the unique needs of artificial intelligence.
Motoko now supports an advanced form of orthogonal persistence called "enhanced orthogonal persistence," which requires AI to upgrade applications by providing special "migration logic" that transforms existing logic and related data into new forms.
Thanks to advanced computer science, the Motoko framework provides hard guarantees for self-written platforms, ensuring that errors made by AI during upgrades do not lead to accidental data loss. Now, AI errors no longer lead to data loss disasters, but simply to retries.
Motoko also enables AI to write and build the backend code of applications at unprecedented speeds. Although new programming concepts are involved, AI can absorb training data without problems during the fine-tuning process, thereby becoming an expert.
Caffeine
Caffeine is the first platform for creating, updating, and managing autonomously written applications that can be deployed to the Internet Computer or a private network version called UTOPIA. Currently, a growing team is working to advance this technology.
Caffeine is a web application optimized for desktop and mobile devices that takes the overall form of a chat application because creating online functionality today requires conversations with artificial intelligence. Its mission is to help anyone who can communicate effectively using natural language build and maintain online functionality, and it aims to meet the needs of use cases ranging from consumers to businesses.
Applications can be created that integrate with external services such as payment platforms, enabling important use cases such as e-commerce. The Internet Computer also enables applications to interoperate trustlessly with mainstream public chains, supporting the creation of Web3 functionality involving token processing. As work progresses, Caffeine will be able to create applications for an increasingly wide range of uses.
A key feature of Caffeine is that it has its own App Store, where anyone can publish their applications for others to clone for free or for a fee. Users can access the App Store to clone applications as a starting point for new projects, or they can use them immediately.
The App Store provides a foundation for a self-writing economic ecosystem, enabling diverse talents around the world to work diligently in new ways and unleash creativity, driving the production of clonable applications.
An interesting novel development is that users can subscribe to updates made by application publishers while still applying customization.
The tech world is facing an interesting turning point today.
Join
If you're interested, hurry up and sign up for early access to Caffeine, or attend the "Hello, Self-Writing Internet" event in San Francisco on July 15, 2025 (limited seats).
The event in San Francisco will showcase some important new elements of Caffeine that were not disclosed at the WCS event in Zurich on June 3rd. The demonstration will last for several hours, and Caffeine will be the tool used for the concurrent self-writing programming hackathon.
IC Content You Care About
Technology Advances | Project Information | Global Events
Follow IC Binance Channel
Stay up to date