Vibecode - Pokemon Related Show and Tell

[MattCollects64]

I have a background in CS, but I do vibecode a lot these days when I feel inspired and want to create a quick proof of concept or just need an MVP quickly.

I thought a thread where we share what we have coded around Pokemon might be fun and help others be inspired to make their own apps.

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App 1 - PSA Tracker

This app came from my desire to better track the Grey Felt Hat Pikachu card. It allows me to add any card I want and then it will track the population of that card from PSA every night at midnight. It also pulls in pricing data from PriceCharting for me on my detailed card page.

It also integrated with Discord, so I can set alerts when cards cross certain thresholds for population or a specific grade like PSA10.

My next enhancement is to pull in the card photo automatically and then clean up the UI a bit.
Edit: Just added the image functionality so I thought I’d update the screenshot.

App 2 - Firefox PriceCharting Plugin

This one is a simple one. It is a Firefox plugin that reads the title of the page you are on, parses out the card info, then looks it up on pricecharting.com. Basically, as soon as you click the icon, it instantly returns the data you see below.

I am still trying to complete a 1st edition near mint binder of Base, Fossil, and Jungle over the next 2-3 years, so this plugin has been helpful in quickly seeing what a card is worth when I’m looking at one on Ebay, Fanatics, etc.

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Have you created anything that has helped your collection or is Pokemon related?

[mthursty]

This is really awesome! I have had the idea of creating a little app like these for my own one off collecting needs but I dont have the CS background to make it an easy task.
I’m impressed and happy to see people making things like this that suit their needs!

[mika]

Really cool one! Love the Firefox extension!

[mika]

For me:

App 1:

Yellow Dot Decoder - Fake Prototype Playtest Cards which is related to the prototype scam.

App 2:

I’ve created 2/3 discord sniper bots for the community and myself:

App 3:

Firefox extension, one for example that when I visit Buyee on a Yahoo Japan auction it sets the auction end date to the time in my time zone, not just Japan.

I also have an extension to redirect yahoo japan links to a buyee link (Yahoo Japan is not available in Europe without VPN/Proxy).

App 4:

Not only for Pokémon, but I’ve also created a site where anyone can create their own gallery of original art (including that used in Pokémon anime and movies).

[MattCollects64]

Thank you for sharing all of your apps! I appreciate the inspiration and these all look really impressive!

I wasn’t aware there were E4 card alert bots. I don’t see them on the discord. Is there anywhere I can read about them? I plan to collect Japanese base set for my collection after I finish 1st edition and they may be helpful.

[mika]

Thanks!

Only available on my private french discord (this one need to be fixed because he’s actually offline) and for the second one (working on YJ/Mercari & more) it’s private for now but maybe one day I would like to make a private version for E4!

[MattCollects64]

What I needed to solve

As some of you know, I have been slowly trying to complete a NM base set binder (non-holos). As I still need about 35 cards, searching ebay has been a pain since there are so many listings that don’t apply to me. I tried to solve it with a detailed search string that included the things I wanted, but excluded things I didn’t want to show up, like other languages, Pokemon I already had, and words like damage, LP, MP, etc.

I was able to use a string like this, but if I included the Pokemon I already had to make sorting through the list easier, I hit ebay’s character limit for search.
"1st Edition" Pokemon Base -German -French -Korean -Italian -Japanese -Spanish -Expedition -lot -energy -proxy -reprint -custom -damage -played -holo -machamp -charizard -blastoise

In the end while this search sting helped a bit, it was not able to do everything I wanted, so I was able to vibecode my own Pokemon ebay search app in about an hour.

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The App

The new app uses ebay’s free API to return search results and has the following features:

• Ability to build a massive include and exclude search list.
• Ability to hide languages, conditions, and even entire grading companies and specific grades with ease.
• Basic sort and filtering
• Ability to show the PriceCharting price for the exact card (app can determine if it’s ungraded or graded and return the right value)

Main Page - Where you kick off the search, sort, or filter the results.

Listing Detail View - Once clicked, you can see all the images and more information.

Settings Page - Where the magic happens and you build your include/exclude list.

Bonus Photo - Example of the filter page in action and showing how the app can tell you expected price for ungraded or graded cards.

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This is an app to fit a very specific need, but it shows how easy it is these days to identify a problem and then solve it almost instantly.

As I get more cards for my collection, I will include them in the “Custom Exclude Terms” list which should help me cut through all the noise on ebay.

I hope this example helps others.

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Edit: I made some minor improvements to the app along with a new alert part of the app that allows me to get Discord notifications when new posts matching my criteria are added to ebay. I have polling intervals up to 15 minutes if needed, but pretty much just leave it at 1 hour. This should help me get to new listings a bit sooner than others and possibly snag a card I am missing.