Going from idea to app in minutes with Townie AI

Steve Krouse, the visionary behind the powerful coding platform Val Town, is on a mission to help get people from ideas to fully functional apps in record time.

In a recent workshop session with us, Steve demonstrated the capabilities of Townie AI—Val Town’s AI assistant—which he describes as "the fastest way to go from idea to deployed app." The AI is designed to let anyone, even non-developers, use Val Town to bring their ideas to life.

This session is a must-watch if you’re looking to create your own web-based apps, experiment with AI-driven tools, or simply test the boundaries of what's possible when you know very little about coding.

Here’s a taste of what Steve shared in the workshop:

A platform that puts code first (great for developers and for AI users)

Val Town’s accessibility and ease of use are one of its most striking features. Steve explained how it’s a “just code platform,” eliminating the setup and configuration headaches that can slow you down.

While other no-code platforms focus on point-and-click interfaces, Val Town is all about simplifying the coding process. From a programmer’s perspective, as Steve shared, “you get to focus on just the elegant code.”

But as LLMs are great at writing code too, Val Town is both “a tool that’s really great for programmers and [...] really great for people who don’t know how to code.”

In the workshop, Steve showed how users could launch applications with just a few prompts, with Townie AI generating code based on natural language requests. This makes it possible for non-programmers to tap into Val Town's full-stack capabilities, which include front-ends, back-ends, databases, and user authentication.

Building a custom chat app in real-time

To showcase Townie’s power, Steve demoed how to build a custom chat app from scratch, complete with a QR code for quick access, explaining:

“The way you work with Townie is in this conversational style where you ask it to make things for you and then it writes code.”

Using a helpful “Val” (unit of code) for user authentication that he’d made previously, Steve prompted Townie AI to “Make a chat app for a workshop ‘How to create full-stack apps in minutes with Townie AI’. Make it look cool.” He also asked for Townie AI to produce a QR code for workshop attendees to access the chat.

Townie AI began generating code for a fully functional, interactive chat app, which attendees could use to communicate during the workshop. Steve then showed how the code is editable, fixing the QR code by tweaking a URL that the AI had put in as an example.

Crafting database-driven applications in minutes

Steve didn’t just stop at front-end applications. He introduced the platform’s database capabilities, demonstrating how every Val Town user is given their own SQLite database upon signing up. “You can make tables, send data to those tables, delete the tables—do whatever you want,” Steve explained, adding that Townie can automate many of these tasks, making it easy to store and retrieve data.

An example he gave was a dinner party app he created, which allowed users to log in, RSVP, and see who else was attending.

Steve explained that all your data tables in Val Town can be accessed from any app. “It’s all very global. You can access anything from anywhere, which is convenient.”

A Hacker News clone with dynamic code adjustments

One of the workshop’s highlights was Steve’s creation of a Hacker News clone. He explained that this had been Val Town’s initial goalpost—creating a “pixel-perfect” clone.

When a few bugs cropped up, Steve demonstrated how easy it is to debug code with Townie. As well as the “Ask Townie to fix it” button, users can examine the code itself to see what’s gone wrong.

There’s also the option to “ask it to reply with full working code,” Steve explained. With just a few tweaks, Townie regenerated the code, letting him post and even handling nested comments.

Future-proofing with prompt caching and evolving AI models

Steve also provided a glimpse into the back-end infrastructure powering Townie: currently, Val Town uses Claude Sonnet 3.5, one of the most advanced AI models for code generation. He described the recent prompt caching improvements that allow Townie to remember prior conversations, making follow-up tasks faster and more efficient.

At present, Steve feels that even with Townie AI, it’s useful for people to know a little bit about code. “The returns to getting incrementally better at programming are really high. If you just get a little bit better at debugging, a little bit better at understanding what the code's doing, you'll be way ahead.”

During the Q&A section of his workshop, Steve answered questions on whether Val Town apps could be deployed to iOS and Android stores, structuring prompts for Townie AI, and integrations that would be coming to Val Town in the future.

Wrapping it up

Steve’s session was super interesting. His live examples showed how code can be quickly produced (and debugged) in real-time with Townie AI.

If you’d like to write code from scratch with the help of AI, Steve’s full workshop will show you everything you need to get started—even if you don’t know any code. Catch Steve’s demo of Townie AI (available to Pro Ben’s Bites members) now.

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