Chimp

Build: the AI engineer builds it

When the design is approved, the AI engineer builds your website or app story by story, from the stories in Skunk Works. Open the app and click Build in the steps across the top.

How it builds

1. The project set-up. Chimp writes the first version itself, without the AI: every page of the approved design, the design system and the checks every change must pass. Websites are built with Astro; web apps, stores and portals with React, TypeScript and Vite. If the project's Brand Kit has a logo the site can use (What Chimp reads), the set-up copies it into the site: in the header, described by your business name, and as the icon on the browser tab. A logo added or changed in the Brand Kit after the set-up does not reach a site already set up. If you chose a chatbot, the set-up puts it on every page. For an Online store, the set-up also connects it to the project's store, the app where you keep products, orders and payments. Chimp makes a store key for the app's address, named after the app with (online store), in that app's Sales channels. The AI engineer then builds the shop on the store's catalog, cart and checkout page: prices, totals and stock always come from the store. The machine that checks each change has no internet, so the shop's products show in the preview and on the live site, not in the checks. An online store also gets a My account page, and so does a Client portal where Mercato is available (its key is named with (client portal)): your customers sign in with their email and see their orders, invoices, bookings and subscriptions, as the store's Customer portal settings allow.
2. One story at a time, in the spec's order. For each story the AI engineer writes the change, following the Skills you ticked. A change that loads a script, stylesheet or frame from another address, or calls one, is refused and goes back to the engineer. Then it is checked in a locked machine on the apps platform: it is installed, type-checked, linted, its unit tests run, and it is built. Only a change whose checks all pass is added to the app. The hub never runs your app's code.
3. The board moves in Skunk Works as it goes: To do, then In progress while the engineer writes, In review while it is checked, Done when it is in. Each story gets a note of what changed and which checks passed.
4. A change that fails its checks goes back to the engineer with what failed, up to three tries. After that it needs a person: it moves to a Needs a person lane, Build shows what failed, and Try again starts it afresh. The set-up, and words or pictures you changed yourself, need a person after the first failure. A story too big for the engineer to write in one go is written in parts, and History shows each part as it arrives; a part is not a failed try.
5. Dropping a fix, a change or an edit. A fix from QA, a change you asked for, or one of your own word or picture edits that needs a person also has Drop this fix (or Drop this change, Drop this edit) next to Try again. An edit needs a person when the words or picture it changes are no longer on the site, for example after a change removed that section. After you confirm, it is cancelled: the AI engineer does not build it, and Build goes on with the rest. A fix's bugs stay in Skunk Works. Anyone who can work on the app can drop one; viewers cannot. A story cannot be dropped, and neither can anything already added to the app.
6. A fix whose bugs are closed is cancelled by itself. When every bug QA handed to the engineer for a fix is closed in Skunk Works, the fix is cancelled before it is built or waited on, and History says "QA’s bugs for this fix are all closed". If any of its bugs is still open, the fix stays. A build stopped on such a fix starts again the next time someone who can work on the app opens Build.

When every story is done and every check is green, Build is complete and QA is next; nobody approves this step. See QA. The work carries on when you leave the page.

Forms send to you

Every form on a site Chimp builds sends its message to you: a contact form, a quote request, a booking enquiry. When a visitor sends one:

• Thrive finds them by their email address, or adds them as a contact (marked as added by your site's name, as a website form) and links them to the project as a lead. The message goes on their timeline.
• You get an email with the message, sent to the project store's email address (Mercato → Settings), or to the account owner when the project has no store. Reply to it to answer the visitor.
• Tellagent starts any automation in the project whose trigger is Website: form submitted. See Build an automation.

The visitor sees "sent" only once the message has reached you. If it could not be sent, the form says so and keeps what they typed. Each form asks for an email address or a phone number, so you can answer. A form sends only from the site's own addresses: the published site, your own domain, staging and the preview. On the machine that checks each change it shows "Messages send from the published site." and sends nothing, so QA checks that a form sends after you publish (QA). The AI engineer is held to this: a change with a form that says it was sent without sending is refused and goes back to the engineer.

Every app has its own repository on VeraGen's GitLab. Each change is saved on its own branch and merged when its checks pass. You never have to look at it. With Developer tools on, you can.

The live preview

Beside the board is the app as built so far, on a locked address (something.veragen.dev) that opens only inside the hub. It appears when the first change is built and green, and updates each time a change is added. Its address is renewed by itself while the page is open, so the preview keeps working after the build is finished.

Press ✎ Edit words and pictures, then click any word on the preview to change it, or any picture to swap it for one from the project's Data Management. Each edit is saved as a change, checked like any other, and the preview updates when it is in. Edits made one after another are all kept: each is applied to the site as it is when its turn comes. The lines of a contact section (phone, email, address) are words you can edit too, so a "please check" line can be replaced with the real details. More build options → Words on the site lists every word you can edit, by page, if you prefer a list.

Ask for a change

Ask for a change… at the top takes plain words, for example "make the header stay at the top" or "add a page for puppy classes". Chimp sizes it:

• A small change is proposed as one change.
• Anything larger is proposed as a new story, with acceptance criteria. When you accept, it is added to the spec (a new version of the spec page) and to the Skunk Works board, then built.

Nothing is built until you press Accept (or Not now). Chimp never makes up facts about your business here either: a price nobody gave is marked "please check".

The AI engineer is shown the parts of your site a change is about: the header and menu, and the page of every page you name, such as "the Trips page". Naming the page helps. For each thing you asked for, it says whether it did it. A change it did not wholly do is never added as done: the engineer tries again with the files it said it needed, and if it still cannot, the change needs a person and its card says, in the engineer's words, what was not done. Press Try again, or Drop this change and ask for each part on its own. A change that only adds code nothing on the site uses is refused and goes back to the engineer too. A larger request that becomes a new story is shown the pages and the shop code its words name (checkout, the cart, bookings), and any file the engineer asks to see; if it still sends nothing, its card says what the engineer answered.

More build options

Click any card on the board to see what it was asked to do, what it did, its checks and its tries. With Developer tools on, you also see its branch, its commit and the lines it changed.

Developer tools

With the Developer tools switch on (at the foot of Chimp's menu):