Quickstart
Fifteen minutes. No terminal. No laptop setup. Nothing to install on your computer. By the end of this page you'll have a real, working app running on your own phone.
What you need before you start
- A phone. Any iPhone or any modern Android.
- The Expo Go app installed on that phone. It's free. Install it from the App Store or Google Play while you read the rest of this page. This is the only app you'll install anywhere. Appsanic uses it to beam the app-in-progress onto your phone so you can actually hold it.
- An email address.
That's it. No Mac, no Xcode, no Android Studio, no developer accounts. None of that until you're ready to publish. And that's a separate guide.
Step 1. Create an account (30 seconds)
Go to appsanic.com/create-account. Enter your email and a password. We'll send you a link; click it and you land in your projects dashboard.
Why the email check? Every account gets a real backend. Real users, a real database, real file storage. The email check is so we can reach you about it (security alerts, billing).
Step 2. Spend two minutes on the idea (2 minutes)
Before you type anything into Appsanic, grab a notebook (or the back of an envelope) and answer three questions:
- Who is this app for? Not "everyone." One specific person you know or can picture.
- What's the one thing they do every time they open it? One action. Not ten.
- Why would they open it again tomorrow?
Three short answers. These become the spine of your prompt. Apps with a clear answer to all three turn out much better than ones where you're still figuring it out.
Step 3. Start your first project (30 seconds)
From the dashboard, click New project. You land on a blank canvas with one big text input. That input is the prompt. Where you describe the app you want.
Don't want to start from scratch? Templates gets you a working app on day one. Pick one closest to your idea and tweak from there.
Step 4. Describe the app in one sentence (1 minute)
One sentence is plenty. Not a spec, not a bullet list. One sentence that answers the three questions from Step 2, strung together.
Examples that work well:
"A daily journaling app that prompts me each morning, tracks my streak, and lets me browse past entries on a calendar."
"A habit tracker for small accountability groups. Four friends, five habits each, checkmarks shared to the group."
"A simple expense tracker for freelancers: log expenses by photo, tag them by client, export monthly summaries as PDF."
Click Build.
Don't overthink this. If your sentence is too vague, the agent will either ask a clarifying question or pick a sensible default. You can refine everything after you see the first version.
Step 5. Read the plan, then approve (1 minute)
Before writing a line of code, the agent pauses to show you its plan:
- The screens it will create.
- The data it will store and where.
- The services it will plug in (sign-in, photo storage, payments if any).
- The edge cases it's planning to handle.
Read it. If something's wrong, say so in plain English:
"Actually, make it free. No payments."
"Use magic-link sign-in, not passwords."
"Add a calendar view, I forgot to mention it."
Fixing direction here saves twenty minutes of rework later. When the plan looks right, click Approve plan.
Step 6. Watch the app build itself (5 to 10 minutes)
The agent writes files one after another. Each one appears in the code editor on the left as it's written. You can watch if it's interesting, or go make coffee.
Partway through, a Preview panel lights up with a QR code. Open Expo Go on your phone and scan it. Your app-in-progress streams onto your phone in seconds.
Poke around. Tap things. Get a feel for it.
Step 7. Tell it what's off (3 to 5 minutes)
The first build is usually 85-95% right. Whatever's off, describe it in plain English. Don't try to write code. Just say what the user is experiencing:
"The streak doesn't carry over at midnight. It should roll at the start of each day in the user's local timezone."
"When I tap an entry on the calendar it opens the writing screen. I want a read-only view with an Edit button instead."
"Change the primary colour to a vibrant pink, something close to #ec4899."
Each tweak takes 30 seconds to 2 minutes. Your phone updates without you touching it. No rebuild, no re-scan, no refresh.
Step 8. Save it to GitHub (optional, 1 minute)
Your project is auto-saved inside Appsanic. If you also want the code under your own name on GitHub:
- Click Export to GitHub in the top right.
- Authorise the GitHub connection if you haven't before. We only ask for the permissions we actually use.
- Name the repo. Appsanic creates it in your GitHub account and pushes the code.
That's it. The app now exists as a real git-tracked project in your name. Even if you never run a single command yourself, the code is yours forever.
If something goes sideways
- The QR code won't scan. Put your phone and your computer on the same Wi-Fi. Nine times out of ten, that's the fix.
- The build is taking forever. Give it up to 15 minutes on Fast or 20 on Pro for a first build. If it's still going after that, refresh the page, or ask the agent to stop and try a simpler version first.
- The app shows a red error screen on your phone. Copy the red text, paste it into the chat, and say "fix this." Almost always a one-line correction.
- The preview is blank. Tap the screen once. Expo Go sometimes waits for a tap to start animating.
What just happened, in plain English
Without touching a terminal or installing anything on a computer, you:
- Spun up a real, git-tracked React Native + TypeScript project using Expo.
- Got a real backend wired in. Accounts, a database, file storage. On Supabase.
- Reviewed the architecture before any code was written.
- Streamed a live version to your own phone.
- Iterated in plain English until it felt right.
- Exported the whole thing to GitHub under your name.
If none of those terms mean anything to you, that's completely fine. You don't need to know any of them to keep building. They're the engines under the hood.
Where to next
Pick what matters most right now:
- I want to understand how this works under the hood. Start with Writing Prompts, then The Planning Phase, then Fast vs Pro.
- I want to add a specific feature. First make sure Supabase is connected (it powers sign-in, the database, file storage, and live updates). Then jump to Authentication, Database & Data, File uploads, Payments, or Push Notifications.
- I want to publish to the App Store and Google Play. Go to Exporting to GitHub, then Publishing to the App Store and Publishing to Google Play.