Chimp
What is Chimp
Chimp builds websites and apps with AI, the way a good software team would: a specification you approve, then design, build, testing and release. The AI does the work of each step; a person approves each one. Open a project and choose Chimp under Create in the apps menu.
Watch the videos
Chimp Overview4:34 video
Build, Sell, Follow Up: Chimp, Mercato and Tellagent Together4:50 video
Chimp with Odin2:12 video> [!NOTE] > Spec and Design work in the hub. Build, QA, Release and Live run on the apps platform: until it is connected, those steps say they are waiting for it, and nothing is charged for them.
Prototypes are part of Chimp. Choose Prototype (design only) to make one; prototypes made before Chimp are brought in with their comments and drawings. See Design.
Its places
Chimp has its own menu down the left of the project:
| All websites & apps | Every website and app in the project, as cards or a table, with a search box and a filter by step. Needs you at the top lists the ones waiting for a person: an answer, an approval, or a change that needs looking at. |
|---|---|
| New website or app | Describe what you want and choose a starting point. See Starting a website or app. |
| Open | The website or app you are working on. |
| Developer tools | A switch at the foot of the menu, off by default. On, each app also shows Code, Repository, Tests and Logs. Nothing else changes, and it is your own setting. |
The six steps
Every website and app moves through six steps, shown across the top of its page. Click a step to open it.
| Spec | What are we building, and how will we know it works? An interview, then a written specification you approve. See The spec. |
|---|---|
| Design | The sitemap, wireframes, a design system from your Brand Kit, and a clickable prototype your team can comment on and draw on. See Design. |
| Build | The AI engineer builds it story by story, every change checked before it is added, with a live preview only your team can open. See Build. |
| QA | Every acceptance criterion becomes an automated test; accessibility, speed, search, security and content are checked; anything that fails becomes a Skunk Works bug. See QA. |
| Release | A checklist, release notes, publishing to your free address, and rollback. See Release. |
| Live | Site Pulse watches it, errors from real visitors become Skunk Works bugs, and you see visits and conversions against the spec's goal. |
Each step has its own AI box at the top (for example Ask to change the spec…). What it proposes is a draft until you press Accept.
Where the work is recorded
- Skunk Works: approving the spec creates an epic for each area of the app and a story for each user story, with its acceptance criteria. Every piece of AI work is noted on the app's Skunk Works task, so the board is the history of how the app came to be.
- Data Management: the specification is a page in the folder Chimp / your app's name, and every change is a new version of it. The app's Documentation folder gets an Overview page when the spec is approved, and a Design page when the design is approved.
- The app's repository: every app has one, on VeraGen's GitLab. Each change the AI engineer makes is saved there. With Developer tools on you can see it.
Who can do what
Everyone who can open the project can see its websites and apps. Everyone but viewers can start one, answer the interview and ask for changes.
| Approving the spec | Publishers, admins and owners. |
|---|---|
| Approving the design | Publishers, admins and owners. |
| Approving QA | Admins and owners. |
| Publishing a release | Admins and owners. |
Owners and admins can narrow who approves the spec, the design and releases for one app, in its Settings → Who approves (for example, releases by owners only); it can never be widened. Someone on a read-only plan can look but not change anything.
AI in Chimp uses the account's AI credit, shown as Chimp on Billing.
Signed in to VeraGen? Press Guide me on any screen for a walkthrough, or ask Odin.