Create an App
Idea → validated, well-architected app
Takes you from a raw app idea to a validated, cleanly architected first version that ships on a sustainable cadence. It orchestrates its ten skills phase by phase, asking you the decision questions at every step and recording every result in your project's docs/ folder so the journey resumes across sessions.
npx skills add wondelai/skills/create-app --global - 01
Is the riskiest assumption true, and what is the MVP?
Lean Startup → docs/PRODUCT.md + docs/EXPERIMENTS.md - 02
What should the core flow be?
Design Sprint → docs/DESIGN.md + docs/EXPERIMENTS.md - 03
What boundaries keep options open?
Clean Architecture → docs/ARCHITECTURE.md - 04
What does the code mean?
Domain-Driven Design → docs/ARCHITECTURE.md - 05
Is each function readable and tested?
Clean Code → docs/TESTING.md - 06
Which habits keep it healthy?
Pragmatic Programmer → docs/TESTING.md + docs/TECH-DEBT.md - 07
How big must it really be?
System Design → docs/ARCHITECTURE.md - 08
Does it feel native on iOS?
iOS HIG Design → docs/DESIGN.md - 09
What ships, and what is cut?
The 37signals Way → docs/PRODUCT.md + docs/STRATEGY.md - 10
Where is complexity hiding?
Software Design → docs/TECH-DEBT.md + docs/ARCHITECTURE.md
Each phase asks the question, then writes the answer before the next one starts.
The long read behind the phases: How to Create a New App with AI Skills
02 What it is
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.
03 In practice
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.
Written to your repo
- 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 journey tracker
Stop anytime. The tracker records which phases are done and which decision is next, so a new session opens at the unanswered question.
04 Prompts
Say it like this.
Name the journey at the end of a prompt and it takes over from phase one. Say it again in a later session and it resumes at the unanswered question.
I want to build a new app — guide me from validation to architecture. using create-app skill
Set up the create-app journey for this repo and run the intake. using create-app skill
Pick up my app-building journey at the architecture phase. using create-app skill
05 Fit
One prompt runs it.
Every phase asks before it acts, and every decision lands in your project's docs/ folder as a living document.
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.
07 Questions
Before you install.
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.
Ten skills, one deliberate order.
Run the whole journey with one prompt.
npx skills add wondelai/skills/create-app --global MIT licensed · Claude, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenClaw, Hermes · No account