Describe what you want

Your description is the only specification AppHandle receives. A clear one produces an app close to what you pictured; a vague one produces something you have to correct afterwards. The guidance below applies whether you type into the desk box or fill in the New App form.

If you use the desk box, the first 500 characters of what you type are saved as the app's description. The whole of what you wrote still reaches the agent, so a longer description is never cut short for the work itself.

Name the information the app tracks

List the things the app stores and the details that matter for each. Names of people, items, dates, amounts, and statuses are all worth stating.

Every client has a name, a phone number, and a note.

The clearer this list, the closer the app's data is to what you need.

List the actions

Say what people do with that information: add a booking, mark a job complete, search by name, send a reminder, export the month's list. Actions are what turn a set of fields into a working app.

Say who uses it

If only you use the app, say so. If other people do, describe what each group sees and does — "staff mark a job complete; clients only see their own appointments". That sentence shapes sign-in, permissions, and the screens.

One example, not five

One realistic example of a record carries more than five variations of one:

A typical order is three bags of cement, delivered to 12 Mill Street on Friday, paid on delivery.

It settles the fields and the level of detail at once.

Ask for one thing at a time

Several unrelated requests in one description — a shop, a blog, a chat, and an invoice tool — produce an app that does none of them well. Describe the core first, see it work, then ask for the next part in the chat. Small follow-ups are faster and more reliable than one large request.

Examples

• Unspecific: "Make me an app for my business." Better: "An invoice generator for my plumbing business. I add a client, add line items with a price and quantity, and the app totals the invoice and marks it paid or unpaid."
• Too many things at once: "A website, an online store, a customer chat, and a booking calendar." Better: "A booking calendar. Clients pick a service and a time; I see each day's appointments and can mark one as done."
• Too abstract: "Track things for my students." Better: "A class attendance tracker. Each student has a name; for each day I mark present, absent, or late, and I can see a student's record for the month."

Nothing you write is final. Describe a change in the chat and the agent applies it — see Create your first app.