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WHAT IF is a web playground for exploring how a question might ripple outward over time. Readers choose a question, open its story, and consider possible consequences on the first day, one year later, and generations later. Its Ripple Engine is not an AI prediction tool: it displays consequences written by an editor or, when none are provided, prompts the reader to imagine what might happen.
What the WHAT IF project does
In his DEV Community project showcase, wafula eliah describes WHAT IF as an interactive home for thought experiments. Rather than presenting a single answer to a speculative question, the site gives each question a story and invites readers to follow its possible effects across different time horizons. Read the project showcase on DEV Community.
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The experience is organized around questions and their stories. A reader selects a question, opens its story, and uses the Ripple Engine to think through consequences at three scales:
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Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →- The first day: the immediate effects of the imagined change.
- One year later: consequences that could emerge after more time.
- Generations later: longer-term possibilities and shifts.
These are prompts for exploration, not a forecast with a claim to certainty. The project’s value is in helping readers move from an imaginative premise to questions about near-term and far-reaching effects.
#1 Best Overall
How the Ripple Engine handles consequences
Eliah is explicit about the engine’s limits: “The Ripple Engine does not generate AI predictions.” Consequences shown in the experience are written in Sanity, where editors manage the story content. If an editor has not supplied a consequence for a time horizon, the engine prompts the reader to imagine an outcome instead.
That distinction matters. The engine is a framework for guided speculation, not an AI system evaluating evidence or estimating what is likely to happen. Its output depends on the editor-written material available for a question and the reader’s own imagination where that material is absent.
Rank #2
Why the story content lives in Sanity
Eliah says questions and stories are structured in Sanity rather than hard-coded into the page. Editors can manage a question, its slug and summary, its story and image, and optional consequences for each time horizon. This separates the content people edit from the application that presents it; adding or changing a thought experiment does not require writing every story directly into the page.
The author built the project with Nuxt and Sanity, starting the projects with their command-line tools. Sanity describes its platform as a backend for content-driven websites and apps; in this project, its role is specifically to hold the editable questions and story material, while Nuxt powers the web application.
Rank #3
What the build experience reveals
Eliah reports encountering a navigation problem in which Sanity content did not always appear as expected while moving between pages. His response was to move Sanity reads behind Nuxt server routes and make page loading non-blocking, so pages could open while content loaded. This is the author’s account of a practical implementation adjustment, not an independently measured performance result.
The project began with a question board and story pages, then gained the Ripple Engine as a way to extend each story across time. Eliah identifies adding more thought experiments and refining the editing experience as possible next steps. That direction follows the project’s structure: the reader experience grows as editors have more questions and consequences to work with.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Who might find WHAT IF useful
WHAT IF is most relevant to readers who enjoy speculative questions and want a structured way to explore their implications, as well as developers interested in separating CMS-managed story content from a web interface. It is a small creative web project rather than a factual forecasting service: its scenarios are authored or imagined, and the engine does not establish which outcomes are probable.
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