Not everything I’ve built is fully shipped — and that’s intentional.

Alongside the projects you see live, there are several others that played an important role in my programming journey.
These projects were where I experimented, broke things, and learned how real systems work.

If you’re curious, most of them live here:
👉 https://github.com/BroKarim

Building My Own UI Library

One of the most formative side projects was a custom UI library.

It started as an experiment inspired by shadcn/ui, but with a different focus.

Instead of building many components first, I focused on theme testing.

I wanted to answer a simple question:

How does the same UI feel when the theme changes dramatically?

To do this, I cloned Magic UI (a popular shadcn-based repository) and heavily modified it.

Through this project, I learned a lot about:

  • Component registries
  • MDX-driven documentation
  • Design tokens and theme primitives
  • How shadcn’s copy-paste architecture actually works under the hood
  • Separating “style” from “structure” in a scalable way

It wasn’t about shipping a library.
It was about understanding how one is built.

Headshota (Paused)

Headshota is an open-source web app for generating natural, professional-looking AI headshots for social media — from a single photo.

⚠️ Status: Paused / In Progress

What It Does

  • Upload one photo
  • Choose headshot styles
  • Apply subtle enhancement filters
  • Generate realistic AI headshots
  • Manage results in a personal dashboard

The goal was photorealism, closer to a light Photoshop retouch than obvious AI output.

Why It’s Paused

  • High image generation costs (tokens add up fast)
  • A tricky image corruption bug during download
  • Fixing it properly requires repeated paid tests

What’s Already Built

  • Landing page (static data)
  • Auth with Better Auth (Google OAuth)
  • User dashboard
  • Full image generation flow
  • AWS S3 storage
  • Supabase + Prisma for metadata

Most of the system works — it’s just waiting for time, budget, and a clean fix.

These projects may not all be finished,
but each one pushed me forward as a builder.

If you want to explore more experiments, code, and half-finished ideas:
👉 https://github.com/BroKarim