📅 January 30, 2026 📁 Development Achievements 👀 0 views 🏷️ #Genspark #Frontend #Next.js #Sandbox

Is Genspark Weak in Frontend? 3 Challenges Faced and Solutions in Next.js Development

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Gatekeepers of AI Development are "Appearance" and "Memory"

In backend logic construction, Genspark demonstrates god-like abilities. However, the moment you step into frontend development, the situation completely changes.

"Builds don't finish," "tests time out," "cannot recognize design breakage." These were the physical limitations of the sandbox environment that I faced during community app development. In this article, I will share the three challenges I encountered in Next.js development and how I overcame them.

Challenge 1: Next.js is Too Heavy to Build

Adopting the latest Next.js 15 was correct in terms of functionality, but it was a thorny path as a development environment.

Sandbox Memory Shortage

Genspark's code execution environment (sandbox) is suitable for lightweight script execution, but it cannot withstand Node.js's heavy build process. When `npm run build` for Next.js is executed, it fails with high probability due to memory shortage (OOM) or timeout.

Countermeasure: Offload to the Cloud

Let's give up on building within the sandbox. The correct approach is to set up GitHub integration and entrust it to "build support tools" of external hosting services like Cloudflare Pages. In local (sandbox) development, only write code, and delegate heavy processing to external services.

Challenge 2: AI Cannot Evaluate "Appearance"

The weakness of AI agents is their "low visual debugging capability."

"The button's position is off," "text overflows when viewed on a smartphone." If you try to make AI fix these, the AI will say this:

"Please provide a screenshot of the current screen."

If you have to go through the steps of checking it yourself, taking a screenshot, and uploading it... it can even be faster to fix the CSS yourself. AI can find logical errors in the HTML structure, but the judgment of "whether it's aesthetically pleasing as a design" is left to humans.

Challenge 3: The Testing Tool Devastation Incident (Rod, Puppeteer...)

"Since manual visual confirmation is difficult for humans, let's automate it with E2E testing tools." I thought so and tried various tools, but the results were a crushing defeat.

Tools That Failed in the Sandbox

  • Playwright: Unable to start due to memory shortage.
  • Selenium: Too heavy, timed out.
  • Puppeteer/Splash: Unstable due to environment-dependent errors.
  • Chromedp: Memory shortage.
  • Rod: The only one that came close, but the display was unstable and required scripts to be broken down into extremely small parts.

AI agents try to debug with their "own browser functionality," but the behavior seems to differ from actual Chrome access, and the results often became garbled.

Solution: Borrowing an External Brain (GitHub Actions)

If testing within the sandbox is impossible, just do it outside. The answer I finally arrived at was "GitHub Actions".

Playwright on GitHub Actions

Push code from Genspark to GitHub and execute Playwright on GitHub Actions. With this, full-spec browser testing is possible without worrying about resource limitations.

Compromises in the Initial Phase

However, if you try to build automated tests from the beginning, you will spend time debugging the test code itself. In the early stages of development, "human visual debugging" is ironically the most efficient. It is recommended to introduce automation with GitHub Actions once it functions to some extent.

Summary: Don't Fight in the Sandbox

Genspark's sandbox is excellent, but it's not omnipotent. Especially in frontend development, it's essential to either "choose a lightweight framework (like Hono)" or, if using Next.js, "perform builds and tests externally."

Instead of "letting AI do everything," differentiate between "what AI is good at (code generation)" and "what external tools are good at (builds, tests)." This is the secret to successful frontend development.

What's Next

Next time, we'll discuss "Debugging and Database Lessons." The "infinite loop of fixes" born from 20,000 lines of code, and the tragedy of a DB design error discovered in the latter half of development. I will introduce "debugging methods you should absolutely never do" learned from that experience.

Tools Mentioned

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