A Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Wallpaper App with Taskmaster AI

Tired of your cursor messing up your app because of a low context window? Well, today I've got the solution for you. This is a wallpapers app that I developed using Cursor. It has some pretty nice functionality and a really clean UI. You can even download wallpapers.

As I mentioned, I built this in Cursor, and the best part is that I didn't run into any stupid mistakes. That's because I used Taskmaster AI, which helped prevent context overload. Thanks to that, I was able to stay in a single chat and build the entire app without any issues.

Now, let's dive in. I'll show you how to install it and then walk you through how I built the app using this tool.

Installation and Setup

Let me guide you through the installation first, and then I'll show you how I actually built the project.

1. Install the Tool

First of all, you need to install it. There are two ways to do this: you can either install it globally using the -g flag or install it for a single project. Here, I've installed it globally.

npm install -g taskmaster-ai

2. Initialize in Your Project

After installation, you need to initialize it in your project directory. For example, since I installed it globally, I'm going to copy this command, open my terminal, and you can see that I'm in the root directory of my project called Macwall. I'll just paste the command, and it will start initializing the project.

First, you need to enter your project name and then your project description. The project description isn't really related to the functionality of the tool; it's just a simple description of what you're building. Next, you'll enter the project version; just press enter here, and it will default to version 1.0.

After that, it will ask if you want to continue with these settings. Once confirmed, it will set up the necessary files for the tool to run.

3. Open in Cursor

Now that the initialization is complete, we can actually open this project in Cursor using this command:

cursor .

And as you can see, it has opened. Now, let me guide you through how I used it and how you can use it as well.

Configuration

After you've opened the project in Cursor, the first step is to rename the .env.example file to .env. Once that's done, you need to enter your API keys.

Basically, there are two API keys you need to add: - Anthropic API Key: This is necessary for the tool to function because it uses that to break your plan down into chunks and guide the agent through those steps one by one. - Perplexity API Key: This isn't required. However, if your project requires external data, then you'll also need to add it because it is by far the best search tool out there. This will enhance the plan tasks significantly.

So just paste in your API keys. I'm sure you can easily find them, but if not, just consult the respective service's documentation. Once you've done that, just save the .env file.

The Development Workflow

This is how you actually start using the tool.

Step 1: Brainstorm with the Agent

The first thing you need to do is brainstorm with your agent. The way I start is by prompting it to discuss the app idea and not edit or create any files yet. This ensures that we can properly discuss the app concept. I'll be building a wallpaper app using the Unsplash API.

Once I provide the idea, the Cursor agent generates a well-structured plan for implementation. It suggested using Next.js, which happens to be my favorite framework. It also outlined other functionalities and the overall structure of the app, which was really helpful.

Step 2: Generate the Project Requirements Document (PRD)

After discussing your app with the agent, you can further refine the plan. For example, if you want changes in the plan, you can discuss it with the agent, and it will update it accordingly.

Once you're done with the discussion, the next step is to ask the agent to generate a PRD using the example-prd.txt file. You have to explicitly reference this file so that the Cursor agent understands it should use the example as a template. The newly generated PRD should be saved as prd.txt in the scripts folder.

This step follows a specific template prompt, which is all clearly written in the README. I highly encourage you to read it, as it provides an in-depth explanation of how the tool works along with the available commands. Once you ask the agent to generate the PRD, it will analyze the example PRD and create a new one based on your discussion. You'll see that prd.txt gets generated.

Step 3: Parse the PRD and Generate Tasks

The next step is to ask the agent to parse prd.txt and generate tasks. Now, the Cursor agent itself won't execute this directly. Instead, the creator of this tool has defined specific Cursor rules that dictate how the agent works. These rules allow specific keywords to trigger specific commands, all of which are documented in the README. By following these rules, the Cursor agent knows which command to run and executes them.

Now, it'll run the Taskmaster AI tool. Here's something important to note: for some reason, the command that Cursor chooses by default includes an --input flag, which is incorrect. You need to remove the flag to ensure the correct command runs.

Once that's done, you'll see the tool start processing the prd.txt file. It calls the Claude API to generate tasks. It wrote 10 tasks and then executed its own command. The interface is actually pretty good, and it even listed all the tasks clearly. You can also see that the interface includes task priorities, and tasks are interdependent. The agent recognizes these dependencies and executes tasks accordingly.

Step 4: Execute the Tasks

Once everything is set, the agent asks if it should begin working on the first task. Now let me show you how the tool works, how it changes the workflow of the Cursor agent, and how it guides it in a more structured and planned way.

Before starting, I asked it to switch to another directory, the frontend directory, and start working from there. It acknowledged that and proceeded accordingly. However, there was a network error during the installation of the Next.js app. This is where these types of prompts come in. I asked it to check its progress on the tasks and then continue. What it did was list its own tasks, check the progress, and determine which task it was currently on.

From there, it recognized that it was still on task one. You can see here that it meant to start task one, and after confirming that, it proceeded. It initialized the Next.js project and installed the dependencies. Once that was done, you can see that it updated the task status and then continued with the next tasks. It called the Taskmaster tool and updated task one's status from pending to done.

The cool thing about this tool is that it didn't need to keep track of what needed to be implemented next in its context. It simply listed the next task and continued accordingly. It saw that task two was to implement the Unsplash API integration, so it proceeded with that.

Now, I'd also like to point out that while planning the second task, it used the Perplexity API. This was a small error, but it corrected itself. The reason it used Perplexity was that it needed to research the API structure and requirements to properly integrate it into our app. It also broke down task two into smaller subtasks since it considered this a larger task. After that, it started task two and updated its status from pending to in-progress. It added all the necessary dependencies and began working on the implementation.

Handling Implementation Drift

Another thing I want to highlight is the README file. I previously recommended reading it because it explains how the tool works and also details how you can control the agent via prompts. For example, the README provides a really good use case: implementation drift.

When you're implementing a plan and decide to make changes, the Taskmaster workflow isn't rigid. You simply need to tell the agent that you've changed your approach, list the modifications, and instruct it to update future tasks accordingly. What happens next is that the agent generates a new command and uses Claude AI to adjust the upcoming tasks based on your changes.

So, it's not a rigid workflow. You can interrupt the agent anytime and modify your plan mid-implementation. It's a really, really cool tool that provides a structured yet flexible approach to working with the Cursor agent.

The App Building Process in Action

So, an update on the app and where it is right now. It's currently on task 6, which is implementing the search functionality. Before starting task six, it automatically checked its dependencies and found that it relied on tasks two and three. You can complete tasks in a nonlinear manner as well, but the dependencies for each individual task must be completed first.

Aside from that, all previous tasks were broken down into smaller chunks using the Claude API. I'll also show you the Claude usage at the end; it's actually not that expensive. So, it's really cool how this tool structures your development cycle while keeping costs low.

Now, let me show you what it has accomplished so far.

The Resulting Application

All right, so this is the app in its current state. You'll notice that the wallpapers are repeating. There's a reason for that, which I'll explain in a moment. Other than that, the filtration system has been added, the search functionality is in progress, and the wallpaper modal has been implemented. We can also download wallpapers now.

As for why the same wallpaper keeps repeating, it's due to API limits. Right now, I can only request about 50 images per hour, so I asked it to fetch just one image and repeat it for now. This is a temporary workaround. At the end, I'll switch it up. There are also different pricing tiers for this API, just like with other APIs, so I'll decide later whether I want to upgrade or stick with the free tier.

This is where it has reached. It's currently on task 7. The remaining tasks aren't really that critical; they're mostly focused on performance optimization, analytics, and the color-based filtering system. So I figured we'd wrap up the article at task 7.

Overall, the UI looks really nice. You can search for wallpapers, use the filtration system, and download wallpapers as well. So, it's a really, really solid app.

Why This Approach Works

Now, I have to say, even though this isn't a huge app, meaning the chances of messing it up without the tool were already pretty low, using this tool completely eliminated errors. And by errors, I mean those stupid mistakes where I'd have to go back, re-prompt it, tweak the UI over and over, or open a new chat.

And the proof is right here: it has been prompting me to start a new chat for a while now, yet all seven tasks were completed in the same chat. The reason it didn't run into context overload is because it didn't need to hold on to all the information at once. It broke everything down into steps and executed them sequentially. And honestly, this is exactly how real development cycles work. We follow a step-by-step process, define dependencies, and then develop the software accordingly.

Task seven was about implementing API caching, and that's now done as well. You can see that instead of the same wallpaper repeating, we now have different wallpapers, so that's cool.

I also told you I'd show you the usage, so here it is. This is the usage for seven tasks, which, in my opinion, isn't that much because it actually breaks things down into a step-by-step workflow and provides a proper interface to track changes. It's not like a single .txt file; it actually offers a pro system. So yeah, definitely worth it in my opinion.

Final Thoughts

Overall, it's a really awesome tool. Definitely give it a try. It's not hard to set up; you just need to do two or three things: install it, set up your API keys, and that's pretty much the only slightly tedious part. After that, the Cursor Agent takes care of everything.

I highly recommend reading through the readme.md because it gives some great insights into how the tool works and what commands you can use.

Hopefully, this helped you see just how powerful this tool can be when paired with Cursor. It takes a lot of the manual work out of the process and makes everything way more efficient.