I use GitHub Co-Pilot all the time to get help. And while it is not 100% correct, it is a good guide for small functionality. I have never tried to build a DNN module with AI. I use Chris Hammond VS template (https://github.com/ChrisHammond/DNNTemplates) to start modules, but I now use the RocketCDS framework and do not need to create DNN module.

Having said that, I do know of people using AI to create good functionality and I think creating a module with it would be possible, but knowledge would be needed to make it perfect.

One of my thoughts for RocketCDS was to use a LLM to help create AppThemes (razor templates), I tried directly from GitHub Co-Pilot and the results were not good. I think because RocketCDS is new and I'm still working on the documentation for it. Hence my though of using a LLM for the specific need.

P.S. RocketCDS already has ChatGPT integrated for content.

At DNNConnect there were several sessions about leveraging AI to develop modules / themes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN4DDnmEA1U was a great one from Sacha.
If I find the time, I want this setup. 

More specific on agents : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lB1hVtJ1Oc from David.

I use it to help with all aspects for development, marketing, etc. It helps me to be more productive, for sure. But, using it to build something considered niche like DNN, you'll get varying results.

You can also try https://www.cursor.com/

I find that when you're dealing with a specific application like DNN, you need to use these tools more specifically. You can't generally just say, "Build me a module." In most cases, you'll end up with resources and instructions, but not the code you're looking for.

When I say, "more specific," I mean that you can tell it things like the tech you're using, a code snippet, and then ask it to help you improve it and keep iterating on that.

Regardless, though... If you don't know what you're doing - you have NO IDEA if the code is good, though. Even if it works.

I have had great success using https://www.cursor.com/ for module development. We have around 15 custom modules for our intranet. I find AI dramatically speeds up the process. However, as Will mentioned, it takes a little more thoughtful control of the context you send the LLM.

I will explain our situation in case it helps.

Our modules are generally small to medium SPA applications for internal business processes. Most are very similar designs, typically a front page with a table of data and then 3-5 screens to manipulate that data. Although we have done more complex modules involving image and document manipulation, etc. We use Will's https://github.com/Upendo.../generator-upendodnn to scaffold our project which includes multiple modules in one Visual Studio solution. We use VueJS for the front-end and C# for the API.

The initial few modules I mostly wrote by hand. However, I now almost exclusively use Cursor. I use AI to do the full stack development. I start by having the AI generate some very specific design documents based on my prompt and its questions. I spend a significant amount of time getting these documents accurate and concise because I make the AI refer to them for the rest of the development process. This and Cursor’s “rules” feature help establish guard rails for the rest of the process. I then work with it to generate the SQL scripts for the DB tables needed. Now I leverage my existing code. I basically tell it I want a “standard” poco/repo/controller for this DB object and because it has access to my other modules it can very quickly create the new API following my existing samples. For the front-end, 90% of the time it is the same thing. Follow patterns in my existing modules to create a view/form for this new object. I still code some. It still goes off the rails some. But it has gotten better quickly. Having standard solutions to give it as a pattern is a huge help.

I use Cursor because it was the tool that had full agentic ability when I started. Carefully designing the “context” you feed it is vital to success. It still requires carefully verifying what it is doing. I have had it make changes that were completely unrelated and disastrous. I use my source control extensively and watch closely every file change.

GitHub Copilot in Agent mode continues to be pretty successful for me as well.

ill be honest deploying modules is difficult but styling is absolutely amazing

Thanks, Mitchel! I’ll give that a shot. I tried deploying a few DLLs I built ( for a advanced form i build ) and dropped them into the bin folder thinking they’d just magically work — but no luck there. That’s about as far as I got. I don’t really understand the deeper coding side of things yet, so it makes building modules a bit tricky. Luckily, you can get a lot done in DNN without them!