When Building Is Faster Than Searching: How Vardot Uses AI and Vibe Coding to Solve Real Problems
How our team leveraged Replit and AI-assisted development to build a custom Jira export tool in under 30 minutes during a client migration, and what it means for agencies embracing vibe coding.
A new client was transitioning their project to Vardot from a previous agency. As part of our client onboarding process, we needed to migrate their complete Jira history: attachments, comments, change history, worklogs. Everything tied to thousands of issues (work items) spanning several years of development work. Preserving this institutional knowledge was critical for ensuring a seamless handoff and maintaining project continuity.
The Problem: When Off-the-Shelf Solutions Fall Short
I'm granted access as a regular user on this Jira instance. No admin permissions. That distinction matters more than I expected.
Jira's native export options are limited for non-admins. You can export a CSV of issue fields, but attachments aren't included. Comments get truncated. Change history and worklogs are absent entirely.
For a complete export, Atlassian points you toward the Marketplace – their ecosystem of add-ons (their term for plugins and extensions).
Here's the catch: installing add-ons requires admin rights.
I spent about an hour searching. Google kept leading me to the same handful of results. Third-party tools that needed to be installed on the Jira instance. Browser extensions with mixed reviews and unclear data handling. Enterprise solutions priced for organizations, not for someone with a one-time need.
Every promising option hit the same wall. No admin access meant no path forward.
A Different Approach: Embracing Vibe Coding
There's an idea from Amjad Masad, the CEO and founder of Replit, that's been stuck in my head lately. In a recent podcast, he put it simply:
"You can build apps faster than Googling for them."
— Amjad Masad, Behind the Craft Podcast
That's the essence of vibe coding: this new paradigm of AI-assisted software development where you describe what you want in natural language, and AI helps you build it iteratively. Not for everything, of course. But for focused, specific problems where the search keeps coming up empty? It's a game changer.
This felt like that moment.
I knew Jira has a REST API. I knew the API works with regular user credentials. You authenticate with your email and an API token, and you can read any data you have permission to view in the UI. No admin access required.
So I opened Replit and started building.
Building with Replit and AI: The Vibe Coding Experience
I described what I needed: a web app that connects to Jira, scans a project for issues and attachments, and exports everything in structured formats. The AI helped scaffold the backend (Express with TypeScript), the API integration, and a React frontend for configuration and progress monitoring.
The process was iterative, which is really the hallmark of vibe coding. I'd test something, notice an issue, describe the problem, and watch it get fixed. At one point, Jira's search API returned a deprecation warning. The old endpoint was being retired in favor of a new one with different pagination. That took a few back-and-forth cycles to resolve. Another time, the frontend wasn't parsing API responses correctly. Debugging felt collaborative: I'd describe the symptom, the AI would investigate, and we'd work through it together.
The whole thing took about 29 minutes of active development, initially, for a fully working MVP! I didn't write any of the code myself. I only guided the direction, tested results, and provided corrections when something didn't work.
The final tool exports issues to JSON, generates an HTML report, creates a CSV of metadata, and downloads all attachments into organized folders. It connects using only my regular Jira credentials. No admin permissions were needed at any point.
Try it yourself: Jira Export Tool
What It Cost
Here's the wild part: the entire thing cost me just $24.97, even after a few iterations where I added extra features beyond the initial MVP.
I also deployed it directly on Replit for convenience. You can export the code and host it elsewhere if you prefer, but I just wanted it running quickly so I kept it simple.
Compare that to the hour I'd already spent searching. Or the cost of most commercial Jira export tools, which often start at $50 per month for team plans.
Why This Matters for Agencies Like Vardot
At Vardot, we're constantly looking for ways to operate more efficiently and deliver better value to our clients. This experience crystallized something important about how AI and vibe coding are changing our industry.
Faster Problem-Solving for Internal Operations
Instead of waiting for perfect off-the-shelf solutions, we can rapidly prototype tools that fit our exact needs. This means less time blocked by limitations and more time delivering value.
Custom Solutions for Client Challenges
When clients face unique technical constraints, like limited platform permissions, we can build tailored solutions quickly rather than forcing workarounds or expensive enterprise purchases.
Empowering Non-Developers
Vibe coding lowers the barrier for technical problem-solving. Team members who understand the problem but aren't traditional developers can now participate in building solutions.
![Screenshot placeholder: Example of the exported Jira data with attachments organized in folders]
The Bigger Picture: When to Build vs. When to Search
I keep thinking about the economics of this. An hour of searching yielded nothing usable. Thirty minutes of building produced a working tool tailored to my exact constraints.
This isn't about AI replacing developers or making software trivial. The tool I built is narrow. It solves one specific problem for one specific context. It's not polished enough to ship as a product.
But that's the point. I didn't need a product. I needed a solution.
The barrier to building small, purpose-built tools is dropping. For developers, agencies, and technical problem-solvers, this changes the calculus. The question is no longer just "does a tool for this exist?" but "how long would it take to build one if it doesn't?"
Sometimes the answer is still: too long, find another way. But increasingly, the answer is: faster than you think. Maybe faster than searching.
That shift is worth paying attention to.
Try the Tool
We've made the Jira Export Tool available for anyone facing similar challenges:
Export your Jira issues, attachments, comments, and worklogs. No admin permissions required. And it's free! For now :)
Interested in how Vardot leverages AI and modern development practices to solve complex problems? Get in touch to learn more about our approach.
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