Skip to main content

How ChatGPT Helped Build XRPayroll

Image
By
Struggling with delivery, architecture alignment, or platform stability?

I help teams fix systemic engineering issues: processes, architecture, and clarity.
→ See how I work with teams.


XRPayroll began as a simple XRP interface and quickly grew into a functional payroll prototype with user management, admin roles, API calls, and stablecoin support. This article explains how AI-assisted coding—using OpenAI’s code-generation models, successors of Codex—accelerated development, enabled rapid prototyping in Vue.js and SQLite, and demonstrated how blockchain-based payroll systems can be built efficiently with modern tooling.

Until recently, I was skeptical about how much AI could contribute to real-world software development. Replacing developers? No. Assisting developers meaningfully? I had my doubts. But after building XRPayroll over the course of December, my perspective changed. AI didn’t just help—it dramatically accelerated the entire development cycle.

What began as a simple idea for an XRP user interface quickly evolved into a functional application with user management, admin authentication, and basic role-based access control. Much of that progress came from pairing my own engineering work with OpenAI’s code-generation models—the successors of Codex that now power ChatGPT’s ability to write and reason about code.

From Simple UI to Functional Application

When I began the project in early December, the goal was straightforward: create a minimal XRP interface. A few weeks later, XRPayroll had grown into a working proof of concept with multiple views, authentication flows, and role-based permissions.

Roughly 70% of the implementation was AI-assisted. Using ChatGPT’s code-generation capabilities, I produced clean and reusable Vue.js components, generated HTML structures quickly, and created SQLite queries with far fewer iterations than usual. The Git diff tells the story clearly: more than 20,000 additions and 6,000 removals.

Debugging still required oversight, but the speed was unprecedented. Iterations that would have taken days or weeks shrunk into hours.

What Is XRPayroll?

XRPayroll is a research project and proof of concept that connects to the XRP Ledger Community network and Ripple’s testnet. The goal is to explore how payroll management can operate on-chain with stablecoins.

Today, XRPayroll supports:

  • User Management: Create, update, and delete payroll users.
  • Admin Login: A secure authentication flow for privileged operations.
  • Role-Based Access Control: Basic RBAC structures to restrict actions by role.

The system is not production-ready, but the foundation proves that decentralized payroll management is a valid use case. API calls exist but require refinement, and CSV import is currently in development.

The Road Ahead

Next steps for XRPayroll include expanding the feature set and improving integrations:

  • CSV Import: Streamlined onboarding of employee lists.
  • API Enhancements: More robust communication with external systems.
  • Advanced Features: Stronger RBAC, reporting tools, and compliance support.

These improvements will determine how far the concept can scale and how suitable it becomes for real-world payroll processing.

Why Stablecoins?

One of XRPayroll’s core design choices is the use of stablecoins—particularly RLUSD—as a hedge for payroll transfers. Volatility has always been a barrier to crypto adoption, but stablecoins remove much of that friction.

With XRPayroll, companies could move funds on-chain while maintaining predictable value, gaining transparency, auditability, and lower operational costs. The system is intended to act as a clearing layer between salary issuers and receivers, leveraging blockchain without exposing users to unnecessary risk.

Verdict

AI-assisted development exceeded my expectations in three key areas:

  1. Rapid Prototyping: High-quality Vue.js components and layouts generated from natural-language descriptions.
  2. Debugging Support: Faster identification of logical issues and edge cases.
  3. Code Refinement: Clear suggestions for improving structure and maintainability.

While human oversight remained essential, the acceleration was undeniable. AI didn’t replace my work—it amplified it.

If you’d like to explore or contribute, the project is available on GitHub: XRPayroll.

Related guides:

If you need help with distributed systems, backend engineering, or data platforms, check my Services.

Labels:

Most read articles

Why Is Customer Obsession Disappearing?

By
Many companies trade real customer-obsession for automated, low-empathy support. Through examples from Coinbase, PayPal, GO Telecommunications and AT&T, this article shows how reliance on AI chatbots, outsourced call centers, and KPI-driven workflows erodes trust, NPS and customer retention. It argues that human-centric support—treating support as strategic investment instead of cost—is still a core growth engine in competitive markets. It's wild that even with all the cool tech we've got these days, like AI solving complex equations and doing business across time zones in a flash, so many companies are still struggling with the basics: taking care of their customers. The drama around Coinbase's customer support is a prime example of even tech giants messing up. And it's not just Coinbase — it's a big-picture issue for the whole industry. At some point, the idea of "customer obsession" got replaced with "customer automation," and no...
Read more

How to scale MySQL perfectly

By
When MySQL reaches its limits, scaling cannot rely on hardware alone. This article explains how strategic techniques such as caching, sharding and operational optimisation can drastically reduce load and improve application responsiveness. It outlines how in-memory systems like Redis or Memcached offload repeated reads, how horizontal sharding mechanisms distribute data for massive scale, and how tools such as Vitess, ProxySQL and HAProxy support routing, failover and cluster management. The summary also highlights essential practices including query tuning, indexing, replication and connection management. Together these approaches form a modern DevOps strategy that transforms MySQL from a single bottleneck into a resilient, scalable data layer able to grow with your application. When your MySQL database reaches its performance limits, vertical scaling through hardware upgrades provides a temporary solution. Long-term growth, though, requires a more comprehensive approach. This invo...
Read more

What the Heck is Superposition and Entanglement?

By
This post is about superposition and interference in simple, intuitive terms. It describes how quantum states combine, how probability amplitudes add, and why interference patterns appear in systems such as electrons, photons and waves. The goal is to give a clear, non mathematical understanding of how quantum behavior emerges from the rules of wave functions and measurement. If you’ve ever heard the words superposition or entanglement thrown around in conversations about quantum physics, you may have nodded politely while your brain quietly filed them away in the "too confusing to deal with" folder.  These aren't just theoretical quirks; they're the foundation of mind-bending tech like Google's latest quantum chip, the Willow with its 105 qubits. Superposition challenges our understanding of reality, suggesting that particles don't have definite states until observed. This principle is crucial in quantum technologies, enabling phenomena like quantum comp...
Read more