Building with your agent
Your agent changes your hosted app when you ask. This page shows the path every change takes, and the habits that get you the change you meant on the first try. For what the app is and how it is set up, see Your hosted web app.
How every change reaches your app
Every change, big or small, follows the same steps:
- The agent explains its plan in plain words before it starts.
- It builds the change. Once the change is merged, it goes to your test site automatically.
- It shows you a deploy receipt: the proof the change is running, saying where, which version and when. The agent never tells you a change is live without one.
- You check it on the test site. A card in your Inbox links to the test site. Press Looks right, or Needs changes with a note saying what to fix.
- Someone eligible approves it. The owner or a designated approver presses Approve production.
- Your live site updates and you get a production receipt.
The cards and who can answer them are described in Inbox and approvals.
Asking for a change
- One change per request. A single change is quicker to check and simpler to send back. Ask for the next one once the first looks right.
- Say what and why, not how. “Add a Referred by field to contacts so we can see which clients send us work” gives the agent the goal; it works out the rest.
- Show an example. Attach a screenshot of what you mean, or describe one real record: “Dana Lee was referred by Sam Ortiz; that should show on her contact.”
More on briefing the agent in Getting good results.
Checking it on the test site
- Check it the way your users would. Sign in, go through the steps they take, and try it on your phone if they use theirs.
- Use Needs changes with specifics. “The new field is missing from the contact list” gets fixed first time; “not quite” does not. The agent reads your note and tries again.
Your app's record
The agent keeps a running record of your app: your observations, the outcomes you want, open issues and the decisions you have made. It reads that record at the start of every task, so tell it your decisions and goals as you go (“we never delete a client, we archive them”) and they carry into every later change.
Bigger features
For anything larger than a single change, ask for a plan first. Agree the plan, then have the agent break it into steps and ship one step at a time, each through the same check and approval. The plan and its progress show in Todos.
What the agent will not do
- Change your live site without an approval.
- Touch the passwords and keys your live site uses.
- Delete data to make a change.
The full list is in Your hosted web app.
What goes to support instead
Some things are handled by our team, not the agent: domain names, and anything outside the app itself. Ask on the Support page.