I’m more of a beginner who’s just starting to learn to code, using AI coding assistants (Cursor, Copilot, etc.) as “training wheels” while I learn fundamentals along the way. In February I’ll start studying at a university where I’ll be surrounded by people who really know software engineering and are happy to help me, so I’ll have good support in real life as well.

I have a big long-term project in mind and I’d love your advice on the best technical foundation so I don’t have to switch stacks later.

What I want to build I want to create my own “personal operating system” for ultra high performance, with:

A fully custom calendar (not Google Calendar) where I can plan my days, weeks, and months.

Project and task management (similar to a mix of Notion / Asana) with goals, priorities, and deadlines.

Meditation module with different practices and routines that I can schedule, track, and reflect on.

Fitness and sleep integrations using APIs like WHOOP and Oura to pull in data on recovery, strain, sleep quality, etc.

A system for goal setting, tracking, and reflection (short-, mid-, and long-term goals).

An AI “specialist agent team” for different domains (energy management, focus, planning, reflection, learning, etc.).

A main AI “orchestrator” that:

Has access to my data (calendar, tasks, biometrics, notes, habits, etc.).

Tracks my patterns over time.

Gives me suggestions on how to structure my days/weeks, improve performance, and recover better.

Dashboards that combine:

My current energy / recovery state.

Upcoming tasks and projects.

Sleep and training history.

AI-generated insights and recommendations.

On top of that, I have a strong interest in beliefs, mindset, identity, and habits of highly successful people. I want a feature where I can:

Store detailed notes about successful people (beliefs, identity, habits, principles, etc.).

Have these notes automatically processed into a meta-dashboard that shows common patterns across many people (like an evolving “success blueprint” for myself).

Store lots of notes in a flexible way (somewhat Notion-like), with tagging, search, and later analysis by AI.

Design requirements Design is very important to me:

It should look and feel premium, very smooth and beautiful.

I want full theming, especially light, dark, and maybe a “galaxy / universe” style theme (I like the look of tools like Comet).

I care a lot about micro-interactions, animations, and the general “feel” of the app, not just functionality.

Other notes:

I don’t want to constantly change programming languages later if I can avoid it. I know migrations are possible, but I’d like to pick a stack that can scale with me from “learning projects” to something potentially serious.

I’m okay with starting web-first (desktop browser), and maybe adding mobile later once the core works.

Of course I am sure I will have more ideas on what to add in the future so I want the possibility to do so and not be limited by my stack.

What I’m currently thinking Right now, I’m leaning towards:

Frontend: React (with something like Tailwind + a modern UI library such as shadcn/ui / MUI / similar for beautiful, customizable components and theming).

Backend: Node.js with Express (or maybe NestJS later) for APIs.

Database / backend-as-a-service: something like Supabase or Firebase for auth, database, and possibly real-time features.

AI layer: calling external APIs (OpenAI / Claude etc.), possibly adding a separate Python microservice later for heavier analysis / agents if needed.

My questions to you:

What do you think about React + Node.js as the core stack for this kind of project, given that I’m a beginner but will use AI coding assistance and have access to knowledgeable students at university?

Are there any major reasons I should consider a different stack (for example, Python + Django, Next.js fullstack, something else) for this type of long-term personal system?

From a long-term perspective (maybe turning this into a real product if it gets good), is React + Node + Postgres a solid foundation, or would you pick something else today?

Thank you for any advice, architecture ideas, or “don’t do this, you’ll regret it later” warnings.