Get started
Tell me about
your idea.
If you're reading this and wondering whether you're really capable of building an app — you are. Not eventually, not after some prerequisite you haven't done yet. Right now, with what you have.
Where you're starting
You can do
this.
The AI tools available today have genuinely changed what's possible for people who have never written a line of code. The hard part isn't the technical knowledge you don't have.
The hard part is the idea, the vision, and the judgment to know when something is right. You already have all of that.
Your role
You are the Product Manager.
This is the most important thing to understand about how this process works. The Product Manager title has a specific meaning — you set the direction, make the decisions, and decide when something meets the bar. The AI team executes on your behalf. Nothing moves forward without your approval, because you're the one who knows what you're actually trying to build.
The four members of your team:
One important thing to know: Claude Chat, Claude Code, and Claude Design don't talk to each other. Everything flows through you. You are the connective tissue. Nothing moves without you, and that's by design — it keeps you in control.
Session one
Our first
session.
Our first session is an orientation. We'll walk you through the full development process — the phases, the tools, your team, and how everything fits together. You'll leave with everything you need to start working independently: your Claude project set up, your documents folder ready, and a clear picture of what you're building and what you're producing at each step.
From there, you'll work through the first four phases on your own — research, design foundations, and scope — using Claude Chat as your planning partner. When your scope is written and you're ready to build, we'll meet again.
What we handle
So you
don't have to.
Before you write your first line of code, we set up three things on your behalf.
GitHub
Where your code lives. Every change you make is saved there automatically — a permanent, version-tracked home for your project. If anything ever goes wrong, nothing is lost.
Supabase
Your database. It stores all the information your app works with — users, data, everything your app needs to remember. We set it up, administer it, and handle all structural changes. You never need to touch it directly.
Vercel
Where your app is hosted and deployed. Every time you push your changes, Vercel automatically publishes the updated version within minutes. Your live app URL is always current. You don't think about servers.
These three tools are industry-standard, production-grade infrastructure. The apps built on them are real. Yours will be too.
When your scope is ready, we set all of this up together in your second session. By the end of it, your project exists, your infrastructure is live, and you'll make your first real deployment. The moment you see your change appear at a real URL in a browser is one worth experiencing early — it makes everything that comes after feel possible.
Support
When you get stuck.
Everyone gets stuck. It's part of building. Here's the order to try things.
Claude Chat first.
Most questions about what to build, how to structure something, or why something isn't working the way you expected can be answered by Claude Chat if you describe the situation clearly. This is where the majority of your unblocking should happen.
Claude Code second.
Build errors, things that aren't rendering correctly, and code-level problems go here. Claude Code can read your project and diagnose what's happening.
The Prism Workshop Developer Field Guide.
For quick reference on day-to-day technical questions — how your daily workflow runs, how to handle database changes, and the rules around sensitive values — keep the Developer Field Guide handy. It's designed to be the thing you reach for mid-build.
Us last.
Deployment failures, database changes, access issues, environment configuration — anything that involves the infrastructure we set up. That's what we're here for.
You won't need to figure out which category something falls into perfectly every time. If you bring something to us that Claude Chat could have answered, we'll help you get there. Over time you'll develop a feel for where questions belong.
The community
The Prism
Gallery.
When your app is finished, it joins The Prism Gallery — a shared space where every Prism Workshop project lives. You can also post project ideas and get feedback from other builders.
The Gallery is for builders, not apps. It's a place where everyone in this program can see what each other made, follow along as projects grow, and share in the satisfaction of having built something real. There's something meaningful about seeing your work alongside people who started exactly where you did and made it through.
You'll be one of them.
You're ready
See you in the first session.
The nervousness you might be feeling is normal — and it's also not a warning sign. It means you care about doing this well. That's the exact right starting point.