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Estage Estage Knowledge

Building backend features with AI

The fastest way to use your Dedicated Cloud is to not touch it at all — describe the feature, and the AI does the backend work and builds the UI on top.

How to ask for a backend feature

Section titled “How to ask for a backend feature”

Just describe what you want in a normal sentence — no special syntax needed. For example:

  • “build a community feed where members create and like posts”
  • “a booking form that saves requests and emails me”
  • “live chat with moderation”
  • “a members-only area with saved favorites”

When your request needs to store or serve real data, the agent understands that from your words and does the backend work first — you don’t have to spell out “use a database”. (More on guiding the AI in Steering the AI.)

What happens during the turn

Section titled “What happens during the turn”

You’ll see the progress live in chat:

  1. “Cloud: Working on your backend…” — the backend agent inspects what already exists in your cloud, then does the real work, with substeps as it goes: Running SQL…, Deploying function…, Enabling realtime…
  2. It creates the tables, security rules (who can read/write what), realtime subscriptions, and any server functions the feature needs.
  3. “Cloud: Backend ready. Building the UI…” — the regular builder takes over and creates the pages and components, already wired to your backend.

The result is end-to-end functional: a visitor action on your published site really writes to your database.

If you don’t have a cloud yet

Section titled “If you don’t have a cloud yet”

Two paths:

  • Ask for a feature that needs persistence (“save form submissions somewhere I can see them”) and Genesis shows a card: “This needs a backend… want me to provision a dedicated cloud?” — answer Yes and it handles it (you’ll be pointed to the plan picker if you haven’t subscribed yet).
  • Just describe the backend feature directly — same logic: with an active subscription it auto-provisions a Starter cloud; otherwise it points you to the Cloud tab to pick a plan.

Provisioning takes a few minutes; then re-send your feature request.

Iterating

Section titled “Iterating”

Follow-ups work like everywhere else in Genesis — and the backend agent stays in the loop when the change touches data:

  • “add an edit button to each post” — UI change wired to existing tables.
  • “also store the visitor’s city on each post” — schema change + UI update together.

What your site’s visitors get

Section titled “What your site’s visitors get”

Depending on the feature, your published site can now:

  • Sign up and log in (email/password, magic links, or social logins you enable)
  • Create and read data with per-user permissions enforced server-side
  • See live updates without refreshing (new posts, counters, chat)
  • Upload files

You manage everything they create from the Cloud workspace — their accounts in Auth, their data in Database, their files in Storage.