# Create an App

> Idea → validated, well-architected app — a guided journey that orchestrates 10 AI agent skills, one decision at a time.

Published 2026-07-16 · Updated 2026-08-17 · Guided journey · Free and MIT-licensed
Canonical: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/create-app/
Source: https://github.com/wondelai/skills/tree/main/create-app
Companion guide: https://skills.wondel.ai/guides/create-a-new-app-with-ai-skills/

**Install:** `npx skills add wondelai/skills/create-app --global`

## What is the Create an App journey?

Building an app well means validating it and architecting it in the same run, not choosing one. Across ten phases you test the riskiest assumption, shape the core flow, then draw boundaries, model the domain and cut scope — every decision question answered into docs/ so tomorrow’s session starts where today’s ended.

## The 10 phases

1. **Lean Startup** — Is the riskiest assumption true, and what is the MVP? → `docs/PRODUCT.md + docs/EXPERIMENTS.md` (https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/lean-startup/)
2. **Design Sprint** — What should the core flow be? → `docs/DESIGN.md + docs/EXPERIMENTS.md` (https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/design-sprint/)
3. **Clean Architecture** — What boundaries keep options open? → `docs/ARCHITECTURE.md` (https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/clean-architecture/)
4. **Domain-Driven Design** — What does the code mean? → `docs/ARCHITECTURE.md` (https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/domain-driven-design/)
5. **Clean Code** — Is each function readable and tested? → `docs/TESTING.md` (https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/clean-code/)
6. **Pragmatic Programmer** — Which habits keep it healthy? → `docs/TESTING.md + docs/TECH-DEBT.md` (https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/pragmatic-programmer/)
7. **System Design** — How big must it really be? → `docs/ARCHITECTURE.md` (https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/system-design/)
8. **iOS HIG Design** — Does it feel native on iOS? → `docs/DESIGN.md` (https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/ios-hig-design/)
9. **The 37signals Way** — What ships, and what is cut? → `docs/PRODUCT.md + docs/STRATEGY.md` (https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/37signals-way/)
10. **Software Design** — Where is complexity hiding? → `docs/TECH-DEBT.md + docs/ARCHITECTURE.md` (https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/software-design-philosophy/)

## What it produces

- `docs/PRODUCT.md`
- `docs/EXPERIMENTS.md`
- `docs/DESIGN.md`
- `docs/ARCHITECTURE.md`
- `docs/TESTING.md`
- `docs/TECH-DEBT.md`
- `docs/STRATEGY.md`
- `docs/CREATE-APP-PLAN.md`

## When to use Create an App — and when not to

Reach for it when:

- Start a new app without betting months on an unvalidated idea
- Sequence validation, architecture, and domain modeling correctly
- Keep the codebase clean and honestly sized from day one
- Ship on an appetite-bounded cadence instead of an endless roadmap
- Decide which scaling techniques you do NOT need yet

Reach for something else when:

- The app already ships and the complaint is how it feels — Improve an App starts from real users.
- You want the architecture decisions without the validation phases — Design Code Architecture is the narrower journey.
- A single pass over function naming and length is all you’re after — install Clean Code by itself.
- You are building the marketing site around a product, not the product — Create a Website is the one.

## Example prompts

- I want to build a new app — guide me from validation to architecture. using create-app skill _(Idea to architecture)_
- Set up the create-app journey for this repo and run the intake. using create-app skill _(Journey setup)_
- Pick up my app-building journey at the architecture phase. using create-app skill _(Resume journey)_

## Worked example — Start an App with Validation AND Sound Architecture

You want to move fast, but not by mortgaging the codebase in week one.

```
I'm starting a new app. Take me through the create-app journey — validate the riskiest assumption first, then make the expensive-to-reverse architecture decisions deliberately, and record everything in docs/.

Use create-app skill.
```

## Frequently asked questions

### How do I install the Create an App journey?

Run `npx skills add wondelai/skills/create-app --global`. It takes about 30 seconds and needs no account. The Create an App skill then works in Claude, Claude Code, Claude Cowork, Codex, Cursor, OpenClaw and Hermes Agent — anything that reads the open agentskills.io format — and your agent loads it on its own when a task calls for it. It is free and MIT-licensed, and the source is at https://github.com/wondelai/skills.

### Which skills does the Create an App journey run, and what does it produce?

It orchestrates 10 skills across 10 phases — Lean Startup, Design Sprint, Clean Architecture, Domain-Driven Design, Clean Code, Pragmatic Programmer, System Design, iOS HIG Design, The 37signals Way, Software Design — asking you one decision question per phase. Each answer is written to your project's docs/ folder (docs/PRODUCT.md, docs/EXPERIMENTS.md, docs/DESIGN.md, docs/ARCHITECTURE.md, docs/TESTING.md, docs/TECH-DEBT.md, docs/STRATEGY.md, docs/CREATE-APP-PLAN.md), so the journey survives across sessions and you keep the reasoning, not just the output.

### Why do validation and architecture live in the same journey?

Because separating them is how apps get built beautifully for nobody, or validated fast on a codebase that cannot take a second feature. Phases one and two settle the riskiest assumption and the core flow; phases three through seven make the boundary, domain-model and sizing decisions while they are still cheap to change. The 37signals phase then cuts whatever the first two phases never justified.

### Can I reorder the phases and do architecture before validation?

You can ask, and the reasoning gets recorded in docs/ARCHITECTURE.md, but the default order exists because architecture chosen before you know the core flow tends to encode a guess. If demand is already validated elsewhere, say so: the Lean Startup and Design Sprint phases become short confirmations rather than full experiments, and the journey moves on to Clean Architecture with your evidence in docs/PRODUCT.md.

### There is an iOS phase — what if I am not building for iOS?

The iOS HIG Design phase asks whether the app feels native on iOS, and it is the one phase that simply does not apply to a web-only or backend product. Say so and the journey skips it, noting the skip in docs/CREATE-APP-PLAN.md so a later session does not re-ask. Nine phases still run, and docs/DESIGN.md still carries the flow decisions from the design sprint.

### Who is this actually for?

Someone about to start building who has been burned by one half or the other — a founder whose last app was clean and unwanted, or an engineer whose last validated idea died in a prototype nobody could extend. It assumes you write code, or direct an agent that does, and that you would rather answer ten decision questions now than discover them in month four.