Build your own Facebook with Claude Code

A social network for friends and groups: friend requests and a news feed, text and photo posts with reactions, groups with their own feeds and more.

1–2 weeksMore screens, accounts and a backend

The Claude Code prompt

Build my own take on Facebook: a social network for friends and groups. Give it an original name, logo, colours and copy, and do not use Facebook's name, branding or assets.

Version one should have:
- Friend requests and a news feed
- Text and photo posts with reactions
- Groups with their own feeds
- Events with RSVPs
- Notifications

The hard part: Privacy rules: who can see what. Model visibility on every post and test it before anything else.

How to build it:
1. Read this folder first. If it is empty, set up Next.js (App Router, TypeScript, Tailwind) with Postgres through Prisma or Supabase, and Supabase Auth or Auth.js for sign-in. Write a short PLAN.md with the data model, screens, third-party services and what you are leaving out of version one.
2. Build the core loop end to end before anything else: friend requests and a news feed, working with real data saved to the database.
3. Add the rest of the features one at a time, and seed realistic demo data so every screen looks alive.
4. Keep API keys in environment variables, and put any paid service behind a small interface with a local stub, so the app runs on a fresh machine without accounts.
5. Run it, click through every screen on desktop and mobile widths, fix what breaks, and finish with a summary of what works, what is stubbed and how to deploy it.

Paste it into Claude Code in an empty folder. It plans first, so read PLAN.md and steer before it starts building.

Version one

  • Friend requests and a news feed
  • Text and photo posts with reactions
  • Groups with their own feeds
  • Events with RSVPs
  • Notifications

The hard part

Privacy rules: who can see what. Model visibility on every post and test it before anything else.

Make it yours: a niche Facebook ignores, an original name and brand, and one feature it does badly done well.

More to build

More in Social · Every build idea