Apps and the App SDK

An app is a small web app that lives in a space: a tracker, a dashboard, a calculator, a document, a deck. It opens as a page in the space, or as a card inside a job. Any agent can build one.

There is no New app button. A job builds apps, and the empty Apps page offers Start a job.

Start a job and describe what you need. The getting-started checklist has a shortcut that opens a new job with the first words already typed.

Help me make an app for tracking client invoices at Fernhill & Co. Show what is overdue first.

The agent creates a project in the space, writes it with the App SDK (React, with TurnPanel's own look built in), and tests it. The test builds the app, renders it at phone and desktop widths in light and dark, runs the steps the agent scripts, and checks accessibility. Problems that block install, such as low contrast, text that is too small or controls with no name, must be fixed first. You see the result when it is ready.

An app can use npm packages. TurnPanel installs them with install scripts turned off, allows only common open-source licences, and keeps the finished app under 5 MB.

At install, TurnPanel shows in plain words what the app asks for. Every app can store its own data. Anything more, such as reading files in the space, calling a TurnPanel tool or reaching a website, needs your approval. If an update asks for more, it asks again and shows the difference.

An app's rights are always the smaller of what it declares and what the person using it may do. A teammate who opens your app gets their own rights, never yours.

Apps run in a locked box with no network and no browser storage. Everything outside goes through TurnPanel, which checks it each time.

Each app has its own small database in the space. Everyone who can open the app can read it, so private values belong in the app's per-person storage instead.

Uninstalling an app deletes its database and each person's saved values for it. Tick Also delete its files if you want the project removed as well. Otherwise the folder stays as a draft you can install again.

An app can offer tools of its own. While it is installed, agents in the space can call them. Saying add this to my reading tracker then becomes a call to the tracker.

An app can also run work in the background through an automation it declares.