Expertise
Prototyping
Functional prototypes in a week. Built by creative developers who actually know what they're doing.
Vibe coding changed the game. The barrier to building digital products has never been lower, and the creative coding community is moving faster than ever because of it.
We think that's genuinely exciting. AI-assisted development is one of the most impactful shifts in our industry, and we've fully embraced it in our workflow. Multiple prototypes we built at Merlin run on an AI-powered pipeline that makes our senior developers dramatically faster.
The catch is that speed without expertise creates fragile software. And the market is full of it right now.
Our prototyping service exists for agencies and businesses that need the speed of AI and the reliability of a team that has shipped production-grade work for Dior, Nike, and Coca-Cola. You get a functional, browser-based prototype in a week, built on clean code with good accessibility standards, real security, and a clear path to production.
How we use AI (and why it matters that we do)
Our workflow runs on Claude Code, Anthropic's AI coding agent, integrated directly into our development environment.
Next to Claude Code, we may use a different provider for tasks where that excels.
We've trained a set of custom skills that Claude Code draws from during every project. These skills encode years of Merlin's production knowledge: our coding standards, our approach to motion and interaction design, our accessibility requirements, our component architecture patterns. When our AI generates code, it generates code that reflects how we actually build things. It learns from our codebase and follows the conventions our senior developers have established across dozens of award-winning projects.
We also connect Claude Code to safe, sandboxed MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers. These give the AI structured access to external tools and data sources during development, all within a controlled environment. One of the most powerful integrations is with Figma. Our setup reads design tokens directly from your Figma files, pulling in typography, color systems, spacing values, and component structures. This means the prototype doesn't just approximate your design. It inherits the exact values from your design system, so the output is production-accurate from the start.
The AI handles scaffolding, component generation, boilerplate, and repetitive patterns. Our developers handle the creative coding: the WebGL shaders, the scroll interactions, the performance tuning, the motion that make an interface feel alive. AI is the accelerator. Craft is the compass.
What a vibe-coded prototype looks like (and why that's a problem)
Vibe coding is a remarkable tool for exploration. When experienced developers use it, the results can be extraordinary. When people without deep technical knowledge use it to ship products, the results tend to look good on the surface and fall apart everywhere else.
Research from Columbia University found that AI coding agents consistently remove validation checks, relax database permissions, and disable authentication flows to resolve runtime errors. The AI optimizes for getting code to run. Security is friction, and friction gets removed. The data backs this up: roughly 45% of AI-generated code contains security vulnerabilities, including hardcoded API keys, missing access controls, and exposed database credentials.
Accessibility is an even bigger blind spot. AI-generated interfaces routinely skip semantic HTML, ignore ARIA roles, produce keyboard traps, and output navigation patterns that screen readers cannot parse. The European Accessibility Act is now in force. WCAG compliance is a legal requirement across most markets where premium brands operate. A vibe-coded prototype that ignores accessibility is a prototype that creates legal risk.
These issues are well-understood and solvable. They just require someone who knows what to look for. Our developers review every line of AI-generated code, test with assistive technology, and build with WCAG 2.2 compliance from the first commit.
What you get
A working prototype in the browser. Real interactions, real motion, real technical feasibility. Depending on your brief, this can range from an animated scroll experience to a full WebGL environment with custom shaders, a headless CMS integration, or an interactive campaign mechanic.
The default engagement is one week at a fixed, accessible price. For more complex concepts, like multi-scene 3D environments or projects that require backend integration, we offer extended timelines and custom scoping. We'll figure out the right format together during a short discovery call.
Who this is for
This service is built for agencies and businesses. Specifically:
Creative and design agencies scoping campaigns who need a technical proof of concept before committing budget. Design studios validating feasibility on ambitious concepts. Brands exploring interactive formats for product launches, seasonal activations, or digital storytelling. In-house teams that need specialized creative technology support on a tight timeline.
If you have a concept, a Figma file, a mood board, or even just an idea sketched on a napkin, that's enough to start.
About Merlin
We are a creative Code Boutique based in Amsterdam. We've been building immersive web experiences since 2018 for clients including Dior, Nike, Inter Milan, Eurovision, Coca-Cola, SKKY Partners, and Musicow. We are Awwwards jurors, FWA and Lovie Award winners, and an official DatoCMS partner.
Our modern workflow is powered by experience, enhanced by AI. We prove what's possible.
We'd love to hear what you're working on.
AI-powered prototyping is a development approach where experienced developers use AI coding agents like Claude Code to build functional browser-based prototypes at high speed. The AI handles scaffolding, component generation, and repetitive code patterns while senior developers handle creative coding, accessibility, security, and interaction design. At Merlin, this means you can get a prototype in roughly one week.
Vibe coding is prompt-driven development where the user describes what they want and an AI generates the code, often with minimal or no human review. Our approach uses the same AI acceleration, but every output is reviewed, tested, and refined by senior creative developers. We build with WCAG 2.2 compliance, secure authentication patterns, and clean architecture from the start. The speed is comparable.
We use Claude Code by Anthropic as our primary AI coding agent, integrated into our development environment with custom skills trained on Merlin's codebase and standards. We connect to safe, sandboxed MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers for structured access to external tools. Our Figma integration reads design tokens directly from your files, so prototypes inherit your exact typography, colors, spacing, and component structures. The output typically runs on Next.js or SvelteKit depending on the project.
No. While every prototype we deliver uses clean code, semantic HTML, and a good architecture. It's not a finalized product yet. If you decide to move forward, we can take reuse and adjust the prototype into [full production](/expertise/creative-technology) with the same team.
On its own, often no. Research shows that roughly 45% of AI-generated code introduces security vulnerabilities, including hardcoded API keys, missing access controls, and exposed credentials. AI coding agents tend to remove security checks to resolve runtime errors. At Merlin, every line of AI-generated code is reviewed by developers who understand authentication flows, database permissions, input validation, and secure deployment practices.
A prototype demonstrates that a concept works. It validates a creative direction, tests technical feasibility, and gives stakeholders something real to react to. An MVP is a shippable product with enough functionality to serve actual users. Our prototyping service focuses on the first part: getting you from idea to working proof of concept as fast as possible.
Usually, no. AI-generated interfaces routinely skip semantic HTML, ignore ARIA roles, produce keyboard traps, and output navigation structures that screen readers cannot parse. The European Accessibility Act is now in force across the EU, and WCAG compliance is legally required in most markets where premium brands operate. Every prototype we build at Merlin follows WCAG 2.2 Level AA standards from the first commit. We test with screen readers and ensure keyboard navigability across all components. Read more about our approach to [experience and interaction design](/expertise/experience-and-interaction-design).
They share tools but the intent is different. Creative coding is a discipline focused on building expressive, interactive digital experiences using code as a creative medium, things like [WebGL shaders](/expertise/immersive-experiences), generative art, interactive storytelling, and campaign microsites. Vibe coding is a workflow where AI generates software from natural language prompts. At Merlin, we combine both: we use AI-assisted workflows to accelerate the creative coding process, building [immersive experiences](/expertise/immersive-experiences) and [digital products](/expertise/digital-products-and-platforms).
