Build your first app
Build a tool for one job, like a rota, a tracker or a retro board. Describe it in a sentence, watch it being built, and shape it with your team.
Priya Until Monday 10:00 SwapSome work deserves its own tool: a CRM, a dashboard of your product’s numbers, a tracker the whole team updates. Describe it in a sentence and WeMachines builds it, hosts it and keeps improving it with you. Start with something you track by hand today and can test with a few real entries.
When an app is the right call
An app opens in a window on the Apps page and can keep its own data. Ask for one when people need to add entries, filter a list or click around something interactive. If you just need a written plan or report, a doc is enough.
Apps can read your tasks, docs, people, chat and connected repos, but they can’t change them. For anything on a schedule, pair the app with a routine: the app holds your standup notes, and a routine posts the summary every morning.
Say what it’s for
One line is enough, starting with what it’s for. “Build an on-call rota with a swap button and who is on this week at the top.” “Build a trial watch that lists workspaces whose trial ends this week.” “Build a retro board for Friday.” How to build an app has six examples with the exact sentence for each, and pasting one is a great way to start.
Type it into the box under “Build an app for your team”, at the bottom of the Apps page (Apps in the dock). The model it builds with sits on the left, under the box. On credits you’ll only see the newest Claude Opus and Sonnet and GPT Astra and Sol, because a weaker model mostly costs you a turn and gets you a worse app. In the Mac desktop app you can build on your own Claude Code instead, for no credits. Templates and Help are on the right.
Then keep going in the same thread: “make the cards bigger”, “group by team instead”. The thread belongs to the whole team, with every ask, who made it, what it cost and what came back.
Watch it build
While it works, the thread shows each step in plain English and posts screenshots, so you can
see the change for yourself. Curious about the code? Press </> in the window’s
title bar and watch each file being written. For an app that saves things, the table button next to
it shows what’s stored.
Nadia 2m agoAnyone can press Stop. The half-made changes are thrown away and the app goes back to its last version. A turn also stops on its own after ten quiet minutes, or forty-five minutes in total. It runs on our servers, so feel free to close the tab: you’ll get a notification when it’s done.
If an app ever looks stuck, or says a machine is already working when nothing is happening, press Stop. That clears it, and you can send again.
Versions and history
Every turn saves a version you can go back to. The code lives in WeMachines rather than your GitHub repo, so there’s no pull request to review. For changes to your own product’s code, hand a task to a machine instead.
Long thread? Clear history wipes the conversation for everyone and gives the machine a fresh start. It still knows the app’s files, and the app, its versions and its address stay as they are. Save any decisions you need before you clear it.
Good to know
Apps are in early access. They’re live on every plan, and they’re also the newest part of WeMachines and the part that changes fastest. Try yours with the team before you rely on it every day.
Apps are for your team: they open only for people logged in to your workspace. Publishing apps to the internet is switched off for now.
Building uses credits, and admins can cap that or turn it off. Start-up holds up to 20 apps and Grow up to 50. See Spend credits well.
Start with one useful job
Pick a rota, a checklist or a tracker someone keeps by hand today. Try it with a few entries, get your teammates to play with it, and use what they say for the next change.
Need a hand? Ask in the shared channel with our team, or write to [email protected].