You don't need to be a programmer to change your app. Every Ghosty app comes with starter instructions: a short, ready-made message you give an AI assistant. The assistant does the technical work — you tell it what you want.

What the starter instructions are

The starter instructions tell an AI assistant everything it needs to get set up with your specific app: what the app is, where it lives, and how to work on it the Ghosty way. They're written for the assistant, not for you — you never have to understand what's in them, only pass them along.

You'll find them in two places:

• On the success screen right after you create an app.
• On the app's Overview page, any time — under "Start working on your app".

How to use them

1. Open your app in your AI assistant. If you use Claude Code or Codex, this is one click: press "Open in Claude Code" or "Open in Codex" and your assistant opens with the starter instructions already filled in — nothing is sent until you press enter, so you can read them first.
2. Using another assistant? Copy the instructions. Use the "Copy the instructions" button — it copies the whole thing, tailored to your app — then paste them into Cursor or any other coding assistant as your first message and send it.
3. Tell it what you'd like to build. The assistant will set itself up first — it fetches your app's code and reads the guide inside — and then asks you what to change. From there, just describe what you want in plain language: "add a page that lists our customers", "make the header blue", "let people export to a spreadsheet".

When the assistant finishes a change and publishes it, your app updates on its own — a new version is usually live a few minutes later.

Your company's design system

If you build in a company workspace, the assistant may ask one extra question before it touches the look of your app: "Do you want this app to follow the company design system?" Say yes and it fetches your company's design guide — the one kept in Settings → Company design system — and styles the app to match. If your company hasn't written one, the assistant notices and simply carries on. More in Company workspaces.

If nothing opens when you click

Clicking an assistant's button when that app isn't installed on your computer does nothing — there's no error, it just doesn't open. That's fine: the click also copied your starter instructions, so you can paste them straight into any assistant you do have. Or install the one you clicked first, then click again.

Don't have an assistant yet?

Any AI coding assistant works. If you're starting from zero, Claude Code is a free download and a good place to start: install it, open it, and paste in your starter instructions.

Your company's apps know about each other

Apps in a company workspace can describe themselves: what they're for, and what they can do. That description lives beside the app's code and is refreshed automatically every time the app publishes — so it always reflects what's actually running, never a plan or a branch.

You can browse it two ways:

• Any app → Overview → "What this app can do" — the app's purpose, its capabilities in plain language, and when they last updated.
• The Apps directory — each app's card shows its purpose, and search also matches capability names. Type what you need ("invoices", "customer lookup") to find the app that already does it.

Your assistants use the same inventory. Before building something new, an assistant can check what the company already has and build on it instead of duplicating it. If an app hasn't described itself yet, its entry simply shows the basics until its next publish.

This inventory is descriptive only — reading it grants no access to any app or its data.

Connecting your apps to each other

Apps in a company workspace can do more than describe themselves — with your approval, they can work together. One app can read data from another, use one of its actions, or follow its updates, and every one of those connections starts with a request in plain language.

How it works:

• An assistant asks. While building, an assistant can request a connection: which app, which capability, and why. If the person requesting is a workspace owner or admin, the connection is approved on the spot; otherwise the request waits for one.
• You decide. Pending requests appear on your company home as a Pending connections card, written in plain language. Approve or decline in one tap. Nothing flows until you approve.
• You can always see — and stop — what's connected. Every app's Overview has a Connections card showing what it shares and receives, active or pending. Owners and admins can revoke any connection at any time; apps using it stop receiving that information immediately.
• Connections don't silently break. If a change to an app would remove something another app is connected to, publishing that change is stopped with a clear explanation — restore the capability, or disconnect it first.

Declining is quiet and never blocks anyone's work; a declined request can simply be asked again later. And as always: reading an app's description grants no access — only an approved connection moves information, and only the one capability you approved.

See it all on the Company map

Every company workspace has a Map page — a live picture of how your apps work together. Your apps sit at the center; the outside services they use sit around them; every connection you've approved is drawn between them, labeled in plain language. A dashed line is a request still waiting for approval.

• Select an app to see what it's for, what it can do, and how connected it is.
• Select a connection to see exactly what flows, whether it's active, and its last 7 days of activity. Owners and admins can approve a pending request or revoke an active connection right from the panel.
• Delivery problems are never hidden. If updates between two apps couldn't be delivered, the connection says so — with the details one tap away.

The map draws itself: as assistants request connections and you approve them, it grows. Any teammate can look; only owners and admins can change what's connected.

Events: apps that react to each other

When something happens in one of your apps — an order comes in, a customer signs up — your other apps can react to it automatically. The app where it happened announces the event; every app you've connected for that event hears about it, in the order it happened, even if it was briefly offline at the time.

• Approved by you. Like every connection between your apps, hearing another app's events needs approval from a workspace owner or admin. You'll see the request in the console, and you can revoke it at any time — revoking stops deliveries immediately.
• Reliable. If a listening app is down for a bit, the Ghosty platform holds its events and delivers them when it's back — in order, nothing skipped.
• Built by your assistant. Tell the assistant building your app what should happen — "when the orders app gets a new order, update my dashboard" — and it wires up the reaction. Announcing works the same way: "tell my other apps whenever an order is placed."

Events are for reacting after something happened. When one app needs another app to do something and answer right away — "reserve this stock and confirm" — that's a connection call, covered above.

Give an assistant its own access

Your team's coding assistant builds apps for you. A connected assistant is different: it's an assistant you use anywhere — Claude on your desktop, Claude Code in a terminal, or any tool that can use connected app integrations — with its own key to the parts of your company you choose. Ask it questions and it answers from your apps' real data; ask it to do something and it acts through the abilities you approved.

Connect one (workspace owners and admins only):

1. Open your company Settings → AI assistants, give the assistant a name, and select Connect an assistant.
2. Copy the access key immediately — it's shown exactly once and can never be shown again. Treat it like a password. The panel includes ready-to-paste setup snippets for Claude Code (a .mcp.json file) and the Anthropic API (an mcp_servers block).
3. Select Choose what it can use: every app lists what it offers in plain language. The assistant can only see and do what you tick — nothing else, ever.

Change or remove access any time:

• Choose access edits the selection — additions work immediately, and anything you untick is cut off immediately.
• Revoke switches the assistant off entirely: its key stops working on the spot, everywhere it was pasted. Keys can't be revived — if you change your mind, connect a new assistant.
• If a key is ever lost or exposed, revoke the assistant right away and connect a new one.

Connected assistants appear on your Company map with every approval drawn as a connection, so what they can reach is always visible.

Tips

• One change at a time. Small, clear requests ("add a search box to the customers page") get better results than big vague ones.
• You can always look first. Ask the assistant to show you a preview of a change before it publishes anything.
• Nothing is precious. If a change isn't what you wanted, tell the assistant to undo it or try a different direction.