Quick start

Build and publish your first Lovable app in about ten minutes, from your first prompt to a live URL you can share.

Build your first app and put it live on the web with about ten minutes of hands-on time. There is nothing to install and nothing to configure. You describe what you want, Lovable builds it, and you publish it to a real URL you can share.

In this guide you build a website for Little Fern, an imaginary neighborhood cafe: a homepage with an interactive menu, opening hours, and a location section. It is a stand-in for anything you would rather build, so swap in your own idea at any step, or start from a Lovable template if you would rather begin from a working app. When you finish, How to build a real product with Lovable shows you how to take on the full journey.

Building with Lovable uses build credits, and the free plan includes five per day, up to 30 per month. See subscription plans for what each plan includes.

1. Create your account

   Sign up for free with email, Google, GitHub, or Apple. Your account comes with a personal workspace on the free plan, and Lovable opens the dashboard, ready to build. For single sign-on (SSO) and other sign-up details, see Create an account.

   You can also skip ahead: type your prompt on the homepage first, and Lovable asks you to sign up when you submit, keeping your prompt through sign-up.

2. Describe your app

   The prompt box (“Ask Lovable to create…”) is front and center, and it is where every project starts. Describe what you want to build in plain language, in any language.

   Try this prompt, or adapt it to your own idea:

   Build a website for Little Fern, a neighborhood cafe. Include a warm hero section with a headline and a photo, an interactive menu where visitors filter items by category (coffee, breakfast, lunch, pastries), an opening hours section, and a location section with the address and a short "find us" description. Use realistic sample content throughout. Cozy, welcoming design. Works well on mobile. No login or database yet.
   

   The last line of the prompt matters. Keeping your first version free of logins and databases means there is less to go wrong, and you can add both later with a single prompt.

   Use your own idea instead

   Adapt one of these starters, or write your own prompt from scratch. The steps in this guide stay the same.

   Build an internal tool for tracking my team's equipment: a searchable table of items with name, owner, status, and return date, plus a form to add new items. Use realistic sample data. No login or database yet.
   

   Build a dashboard for a subscription business showing monthly revenue, active customers, and churn as charts, with a recent signups table. Use realistic sample data. No login or database yet.
   

   Build an online store front for a ceramics studio: a product grid with photos and prices, a product detail page, and an About page. Use realistic sample products. No checkout or database yet.
   

   Start from a Lovable template instead

   If you would rather begin from a working app than a blank prompt, browse Lovable templates, open one you like, and remix it. Remixing creates your own independent copy that you can edit freely, on any plan. The rest of this guide still applies: you refine the app in chat and publish it the same way. See Remix a project.

3. Watch the first version appear

   Lovable creates your project and starts building. The first version takes a few minutes, and you can watch it take shape as Lovable works.

   When it is ready, you are in the editor, which has two halves: the chat on the left, where you talk to Lovable, and the preview on the right, where your app runs live. Click around the preview: try the menu filters, scroll the sections.

   Everything you see is a real, working app, and the code behind it is yours. From here on, every change is saved as a version you can restore, so nothing you do next can break it permanently.

4. Make a change

   Ask for one change at a time and check the preview after each. For example:

   Add a "Today's specials" section between the menu and the opening hours, highlighting two menu items with a short description and price.
   

   If the app works but does not look or feel like you pictured, say that in plain words too. This is a perfectly good prompt:

   Make the whole site feel warmer and less corporate.
   
5. Tweak it by pointing

   For small visual changes, pointing beats describing. Open the preview toolbar, select the exact element, and say what should change. To change text, such as a headline or a button label, use Edit text inline and type directly on the page. No prompt needed.

6. Check that it works

   Before publishing, spend a few moments testing your app. A quick check now saves a round of confused messages from the first person you send the link to:

   • Click every button and link.
   • Try the interactive parts: filter the menu by every category.
   • Click the device toggle above the preview to cycle to Mobile view. Most people will open your link on their phone.

   If something is off, tell Lovable exactly what is wrong and where:

   In the menu, clicking the pastries filter shows no items. It should show the pastry items.
   
7. Publish

   Click Publish in the top right of the editor. Lovable suggests a lovable.app web address, which you can edit before publishing. Click Publish again to deploy. After a short deploy, your app is live at your own lovable.app URL, free on every plan. Send the link to a friend, or invite them to the project to build together.

   And the single most common surprise for new users: your live site is a snapshot. Later changes appear in the preview immediately, but the live site only updates when you click Publish → Publish changes.

That is the whole loop: describe, refine, publish. Every app you build in Lovable, however ambitious, is this loop repeated.

Other ways to start a project

A typed prompt is the most common starting point, but not the only one:

• Attach a design or screenshot: Add images to your first prompt, such as a mockup, a sketch, or a screenshot of a site whose layout you like, and Lovable uses them as a visual reference. See Attach files as context.
• Remix a template: Browse Lovable templates and remix one to start from a working app instead of a blank page. You can remix your own projects too. See Remix a project.
• Build from a link: Generate a project from a URL that carries the prompt, useful for sharing predefined prompts. See Build with URL.

For the full list, see Ways to create a project.

Lovable also works beyond the browser: build from the desktop app or the mobile app, chat with Lovable in Slack or Telegram, start projects from ChatGPT, and drive Lovable from your own AI tools with the Lovable MCP server.

Keep going

How to build a real product with Lovable

Ready for a real product? The full journey: shape an idea, plan, build in loops, add a backend, test, publish, and grow.

Prompting basics

Get better results with clearer prompts.

Follow the Academy learning path

Build a second app in a series of short guided lessons.

Add a backend

Store data and sign in users.

Launch on a custom domain

Publish, put your app on your own domain, and help people find it.