Working as an AppHandler

An AppHandler is hired by the hour to work on someone's app inside AppHandle. The owner describes what they need, you agree what you will do and how long you expect it to take, and you work on the app directly.

What the work is

Someone built an app by describing it, and now something is missing, broken or too slow. You open that app, work on it, and hand it back working. The tasks are ordinary app work: a page that needs to change, data that needs to move, a form that needs to reach somewhere, an import that needs to run.

You work inside the app the owner already has. Nothing is copied out and nothing is rebuilt somewhere else.

You set your rate and keep all of it

You choose your hourly rate in your profile, and you can change it whenever you want. Your rate is fixed for a contract at the moment it is created, so changing it later does not change work you have already agreed.

The owner pays our fee on top of your rate, so nothing is taken out of what you charge.

You pay for the AI you use

This is the one cost that sits on your side. While you work, the AI you run is billed to your balance, not the owner's. A wasteful run is your cost, so it is worth working in short, aimed steps.

An AppHandler account has no free monthly allowance. The allowance exists to help someone build their own apps, and hiring yourself through contracts would turn it into a way to have the platform pay for client work. So becoming an AppHandler ends it, including whatever was left that month, and it does not come back. The desk asks before it happens, because it cannot be undone.

Your balance needs credit before you start. If your credit is spent, builds pause and the desk offers to add credits.

The owner writes the requirements, you send the estimate

Before any work starts, the owner writes the Requirements: what should work when the job is done. You answer with an Estimate: the Hours you expect the job to take, and any Requests/Conditions that could change them.

You send it with Send the estimate. The owner reads it and agrees with Agree and start. Only then does the work begin.

The money is held before you start

Agreeing sets the money aside from the owner's balance at that point, so it cannot be spent on anything else while you work. The held amount is your estimate plus our fee, and the owner pays that fee.

The held amount is not a limit on the work. If the finished work costs more than the estimate, the owner pays the difference when they approve your bill. If the owner stops the contract instead, anything above what was held is not paid.

How the clock works

The clock runs only while work is happening, and there is nothing to start. It opens by itself with the work you complete on the contract, and each piece of work keeps it going. After five minutes with no activity it pauses by itself, and it continues when you work again. A clock that is open with nobody working bills nothing.

Only work actually done is billed, counted in five-minute steps and rounded up when the bill is closed. Work the owner does on their own app is never billed to the contract.

Bills and approval

When a task is done you send a bill. It shows the minutes you worked and the work behind them: the changes that were saved, how many files they touched, what was added and removed, and the actions recorded during that stretch.

Sending a bill moves no money. The owner reads it and approves it, and approval releases the amount that was held. An unapproved bill does not expire, and nothing approves it on the owner's behalf: it stays waiting until the owner decides.

Your payment arrives as credit in your AppHandle balance.

Stopping

You can stop at any time with Stop working. If you stop before a task is done, it is not paid, and a bill that is still waiting for approval is cancelled.

The owner can also stop at any time with Stop and pay for the work, and pays for the work that was delivered. Once a contract ends it leaves your list.

One person in a session at a time

A session carries one person's name for its whole life, so the work and the minutes are counted under the right name. If someone is already working in the app's session you see This app is open as someone else, and the owner can take the session over. Taking it over ends that session and starts a fresh one.

What you can see

You can see the app and every change made to it, the app's data, the minutes on each bill and the work behind them, and the conversation with the owner. You can also read the app's credential names, who may use each one, and whether it has been filled in.

The owner sees the changes you make and the work behind every bill.

What you cannot see

You are never given the owner's credential values. Passwords, keys and login details belong to the app and stay with the owner, and only the owner can add or replace a value.

When your work needs a credential, the real value is never handed to you, and it is never placed in the code you run. What you build still works: the name resolves, your work runs, and you can test every part of it. The real value is put in only for the owner, for an editor the owner has invited, and when the app runs for the people who use it.

Where to go next

Set up your profile in your account settings: turn on Offer my services as an AppHandler, choose the kinds of app you build, and set your rate. Your profile is then listed in the AppHandlers directory.

For the money side, read Credits and top-ups.