App Builder FAQ
Answers to common setup and operating questions about App Builder.
For what the app is and how to set it up from scratch, see the
App Builder Overview.
Setup
Does App Builder need to be enabled or licensed before anyone can use it?
There is nothing to license, but it does have to be turned on. App Builder is pay-as-you-go and off by default: an administrator enables it from the Apps Marketplace. There is no per-employee charge and no floor — billing is per deployed custom app — so a tenant that has enabled it and deployed nothing pays nothing. It stays opt-in rather than always-on because it can deploy code into your tenant, which is a decision an admin should make deliberately. AI tokens the builder spends stay on the shared platform AI-credits meter and are not billed separately.
Who can build apps, and who can only monitor?
App Builder has two tiers. A global administrator can do everything: create and edit mini apps, build, edit and deploy custom apps, manage API keys, and change settings. A delegated app-admin — granted by a global admin from the Apps Marketplace — can monitor Your apps, browse Templates, view Analytics, create or edit templates, and retry loading a failed app, but cannot create anything or change settings. Regular members never see App Builder at all.
I granted someone app-admin access but they can’t create an app — is that a bug?
No. The creation flows and Settings are visible only to global administrators. Creating a mini app makes real objects in your tenant and enables an app; building a custom app deploys code; Settings governs unattended AI spend. All three require the global-admin tier. A delegated app-admin sees Home, Your apps, Templates, and Analytics — the surfaces match the actions they can take, so nothing they can click will bounce them.
Where did the Build, Compose, and Builds tabs go?
They were removed from the left rail on purpose. Tabs are now places — Home, Your apps, Templates, Analytics, Settings — and the verbs live in the Create fork on the Home page: Mini app, Custom app, and Start from a template. Build history moved onto Your apps and the Recent builds card on Home. Every old URL still works; only the tabs changed.
Mini apps vs. custom apps
Should I create a mini app or a custom app?
Start from what the thing is, not from how it should be built. If you are tracking, counting, or logging records — supplies on a shelf, visitors at a desk, equipment on loan, vehicle inspections — that is a mini app: no code, reviewed on a plain-language approval card, and running the same day. If you need custom screens, unusual logic, or an integration with an outside system, that is a custom app and AI writes real code for it.
You do not have to get this right up front. The create fork asks in those terms rather than by technology, and the two paths cross-recommend each other — start describing a tracker in the code builder and it will point you at the faster path.
What is actually created when I approve a mini app?
Real platform objects, not a private copy of anything: a Power Tables table with your fields, the saved views you approved, automation rules, and — if the plan included one — a Live Board. Together they are registered as a marketplace app with its own slug, icon, launcher entry, and permissions, running at /apps/<slug>. No code is generated and nothing is deployed. That is why a mini app is live in minutes and why it improves as Power Tables and Live Boards do.
Do mini apps show up in the public app directory?
No. Mini apps are private to the tenant that created them. They never appear in the public MangoApps directory, in another business’s marketplace, or in any package or plan quote. There is nothing to publish or submit — that path exists only for custom apps.
Are my mini apps visible to employees straight away?
Yes — that is the difference from custom apps, and it surprises people. A mini app is published to members the moment you approve it, because its usual purpose is frontline use: someone scanning a shelf label and reporting a count from their phone. If you want to stage it first, unpublish it from the Apps Marketplace like any other app. A newly deployed custom app is the opposite: enabled but admin-only until you publish it.
Do I need Power Tables and Live Boards licensed separately?
No, and you do not need to turn them on first. Enabling a mini app enables both host apps for the business automatically if they were not already on — the grid and the board are served by them, so the mini app cannot work without them. Both are zero-barrier pay-as-you-go; creating the mini app is the deliberate opt-in. Nothing is ever disabled on your behalf.
What a mini app can and cannot do
What can a mini app’s automations actually do?
Three things: update a field on the record, notify a person, or open a task. That is the entire palette an AI is allowed to author.
A composed automation cannot email someone outside your company, call a webhook, delete, lock, or archive a row, start an approval, or invoke AI. Recipients are limited to two: the person who filed the record, and the person who created the app — never an arbitrary list. The limit is deliberate rather than unfinished, and it is what makes it safe for an admin to create an app from one sentence: the result can never quietly become a way to send data out of the company or destroy records.
Can I get an alert 30 days before something expires?
Not as an automation, and the drafter will tell you so rather than pretending. A mini app’s triggers are a record was created and a field changed — there is no schedule trigger, so nothing fires on the passage of time.
The honest answer is a saved view filtered to the next 30 days. It stays correct without sending anything, anyone can open it, and it does not go stale the way a rule written against a fixed date does. If you genuinely need a scheduled send, Power Tables carries the fuller automation palette — including email and webhooks — and a mini app’s table is an ordinary Power Table, so that door stays open to an admin who wants it.
Can one mini app cover two linked tables?
No. A mini app is single-table by design. If you describe an ask that needs two linked record types, the AI declines and says why instead of composing something that half-works. Two linked tables is either two mini apps, a Power Tables setup built by hand, or a custom app.
I asked for a change and it said it can’t rename or remove things — why?
Edits to a mini app are additive only. The edit loop can add fields, views, and automations, and can add a board or quick-update form if the app has none. It cannot rename, modify, or remove anything.
Renames and removals live in the app’s own settings page and in the Power Tables and Live Boards surfaces, where referential protection applies and the tool can tell you what a removal will break. The upside of the restriction is the guarantee that comes with it: nothing you renamed or built by hand is ever touched by an edit or by a future platform update.
What is the quick-update form, and why can someone with no table access use it?
It is one narrow door: identify a single record by its code, and report a new number for one field. The confirmation names the record and shows the movement — 12 → 9, not just “saved” — and an optional note lands in that row’s change log alongside every other change.
It is safe to expose that widely precisely because it is narrow. It cannot create records, browse or read the table, touch any other field, or be pointed at a different table — every one of those is fixed by the app’s definition, never by the request. So a member with no Power Tables data access can still open the mini app, use the door, and see an honest notice about what they cannot see, rather than a silently empty grid.
I deleted a view the app created — what happens now?
Automatic updates stop for that app, on purpose. Hard-deleting something a mini app created is read as “you own this app now”, so a future platform release can never resurrect what you deliberately removed. The app’s settings page shows a banner naming what is gone.
Two things that are not divergence: renaming anything (views, automations, and the board reference fields by ID, so renames are always safe) and archiving an object (archived objects still resolve). If you want the original set back, disable and re-enable the app from the Apps Marketplace — that re-stamps the missing pieces.
If I start from a template, do I get updates to that template later?
No. A template compiles a copy. From the moment you approve it the app is yours, fully editable, with no upgrade tie back to the source — the app’s settings page names the template it came from and says exactly this. Two kinds exist: full platform app manifests (fields, views, automations, and board together) and Power Tables gallery packs (column structure only, so you add automations afterwards through the edit loop).
I drafted a mini app but navigated away — did I lose it?
No. Drafts are saved automatically the moment a plan comes back, so drafting does not have to be done in one sitting. Resume or discard them from the Your open drafts card on the compose page. Drafts are per-admin working notes, not a shared surface, and approving a plan settles its draft.
Permissions and access
Why can’t my employees see the custom app I just deployed?
A newly deployed custom app starts visible to administrators only. To roll it out, go to Admin → Apps, find the app, and choose Publish to everyone or scope it to specific groups with a visibility rule. Until you publish, employees cannot see it in the app launcher or navigate to it. (Mini apps behave differently — they are published to members on creation.)
Can employees change settings in a deployed app?
No. Settings inside a deployed custom app are restricted to administrators. Employees can use the app — view records, create records, submit forms — but cannot change its configuration.
Who can change a mini app’s settings?
Someone holding an app-admin grant on that mini app, or a Power Tables admin. Each mini app is a real marketplace app, so a global admin can delegate administration of one specific mini app without handing over App Builder itself. That person can rename the app’s vocabulary, print QR labels, manage its fields, and switch the app off. Who can use the app is a separate question, governed by the mini app’s own audience — not by Power Tables’ audience.
Day-to-day
How do I edit an app that is already deployed?
For a custom app: open the build session from Build history or click Edit with AI on the app in Your apps. Describe the change in the conversation. The builder drafts a plan and pauses for your approval before writing code, the same way it does for a new build. After you review the changes, click Deploy or Update to push them live. Version history keeps the previous state one restore away.
For a mini app: open it from Compose or Your apps and describe what to add. The proposed change renders on its own approval card, and applying it bumps the app’s version. There is no deploy step — the change is live when you approve it.
What does the plan-approval step look like?
For a custom app, the builder drafts a plan listing the record types, screens, files, and capabilities the app will include, then pauses. For a mini app, the approval card lists every field with its type, each saved view and what it filters to, each automation and what it does, the board, and the quick-update form. In both cases you can revise, edit, or decline before anything is created, and in both cases the plan is re-validated on the server when you approve it — so what you approved is what you get.
Can I attach screenshots or documents when describing an app?
Yes, in the custom-app builder. You can attach up to 5 images per message, each up to 10 MB. Accepted formats are PNG, JPEG, GIF, and WebP. The mini-app composer is text-only — you describe what you want to track in a sentence or two.
How do I save a build as a reusable template?
After a successful custom-app build, click Save as template in the builder. The template captures the original description and the approved plan specification, and is scoped to your business. You can also create templates manually from the Templates shelf. System templates (the curated gallery) are read-only, but you can import one as an editable draft. Mini-app templates are platform-provided and appear at the top of the same Templates page.
How do people use a mini app from the shop floor?
Two ways, neither of which needs an app install or a scanner. Print QR labels from the app’s Manage menu gives you a sheet of one code per record; scanning a label with a phone camera opens that record’s mobile card with − / + steppers. Or send people straight to the app’s quick-update door, where they type the code and the new number. Both land in the same audit trail as every other change.
When something looks wrong
My app stopped loading — what happened?
This applies to deployed custom apps. When one fails to load, App Builder records the failure. After 3 consecutive failures, the app is quarantined and stops being loaded for users entirely. You will see a health alert in your inbox if alerts are on. From Your apps, you can retry loading the app, roll back to a previous version, or open it with Fix with AI to repair the code.
The builder hit its iteration limit and paused — what do I do?
Click Continue. Each click doubles the builder’s iteration budget for that session. If Auto-continue long builds is on in Settings (the default), medium and rich builds extend automatically up to 2 extra rounds before pausing. The absolute ceiling is 120 iterations. If that is not enough, the per-session token budget (12 million tokens by default) is the real stop.
I got a “still processing” error when I sent a message
The builder processes one message at a time. If you see this error, a previous turn is still running. Wait for it to finish, or click Cancel to stop the current generation before sending a new message. Short confirmations like “yes” or “build it” sent while a build is already running are absorbed silently so they do not block you.
My mini app says it is still being set up — is it broken?
Almost certainly not. Creating a mini app stamps several objects (a table, its columns, views, rules, and possibly a board), and that work finishes in the background. If a step fails, the platform retries and heals forward rather than starting over — the process is designed so a retry completes the remainder instead of duplicating anything. Give it a minute and reload. If it is still stuck after that, check Your apps.
I see a health alert about an event handler being suspended — what does that mean?
A built custom app’s event handler was suspended after repeated failures when processing events. Events for that handler are being dropped until an administrator unsuspends it. Open the app in the builder or from Admin → Custom Apps to investigate and redeploy a fix.
I can’t find the app on my phone — where did it go?
The custom-app builder itself is desktop-only. On a phone you see a “Building happens on desktop” card and a list of your live built apps that have a mobile view. Not every built app has a mobile page — only apps with record types are servable on mobile. Mini apps work in a phone browser, and QR labels deep-link straight to a record’s mobile card.
I submitted a form through the public link but nobody received it — why?
Public submissions land as records in the app. If nobody is being notified, the app’s notification rules or SLA configuration may not cover the public-submission flow. Ask your administrator to check the app’s notification and overdue settings in the builder.
How many versions of my app are kept?
The builder keeps up to 10 file snapshots per build session. Versions increment as you build and edit. When the cap is reached, the oldest snapshot is dropped. Restoring a version takes a safety snapshot of your current files first, so you do not lose the state you are rolling back from.
Licensing and limits
What are the mini-app limits I should know about?
| What | Limit |
|---|---|
| Fields per mini app | 1–15 |
| Field types available | Text, number, counter, choice, date, person |
| First field | Must be text — it is the record’s display name |
| Field name length | 30 characters |
| App name length | 1–60 characters |
| Options on a choice field | 2–20 |
| Saved views per mini app | 6 |
| Automations per mini app | 10 |
| Automation actions allowed | Update a field, notify a person, create a task |
| Automation recipients allowed | The person who filed the record, or the app’s creator |
| Automation triggers allowed | Record created, field changed (no schedule) |
| Rows shown on a live board | 3–10 |
| Description length when composing | 2,000 characters |
| Description length when editing | 1,000 characters |
| Automatic repair attempts on an invalid draft | 1 |
| Open drafts kept per administrator | 10 |
| Records per printable QR label sheet | 120 |
| How many mini apps you can run | Bounded by the Power Tables table quota |
How many mini apps can we have?
As many as your Power Tables table quota allows, because each mini app creates one table. The default is 5 tables, and an administrator can raise it to 25 in Power Tables’ own settings without asking anyone. Beyond that requires a MangoApps Console grant, which tops out at 500. If a mini app fails to create with a quota message, that is the number to check.
What are the custom-app build limits I should know about?
| What | Limit |
|---|---|
| Platform APIs available to a built app | 79 |
| Declared capabilities an app can request | 16 |
| Image attachments per message | 5 |
| Image size | 10 MB |
| Builder chat messages | 60 per hour |
| Agent iterations per build turn | 40 |
| Absolute iteration ceiling per session | 120 |
| Wall-clock limit per build turn | 600 seconds |
| Per-session token budget | 12,000,000 tokens |
| Auto-continue rounds (medium and rich builds) | 2 |
| File snapshots retained | 10 |
| Quarantine threshold | 3 consecutive failures |
| Health alert deduplication window | 6 hours |
| API key scopes | builder, query, manage |
| AI-usage log retention | 30 days |
How is App Builder priced?
Usage-based, billed per deployed custom app on an annual interval — no per-employee charge and no floor, so a tenant with no deployed apps pays nothing. Only apps that were built here and are running count. Specifically, the meter counts distinct app slugs that are deployed and healthy and were not installed from the community marketplace. Three consequences worth knowing:
- An app that fails to load or is quarantined is free while it is broken.
- Redeploying the same app does not bill twice — versions of one app are still one app.
- Something you installed from the community directory is not a build, so it does not count.
Mini apps do not touch that meter at all. Nothing is deployed, so there is no per-app charge; their rows bill through Power Tables like any other table data. Builder AI tokens are not billed separately either — they stay on the shared platform AI-credits meter, and the Analytics tab shows the spend. For current rates, talk to your MangoApps account team.
Can I build apps from external tools instead of the browser?
Yes, for custom apps. App Builder issues scoped, revocable API keys and exposes an MCP endpoint. External tools — Cursor, Claude Code, or a CLI — can list tools, call them, and run read-only platform queries against your tenant. Keys track last use and can be revoked from the builder at any time. The three available scopes are builder, query, and manage.
What quality checks does a build go through before I can deploy?
Every custom-app build passes three checks before deploy is offered. First, deterministic fit checks validate the schema, paths, and file structure. Second, an AST-level static security scan inspects the generated code for sandbox escapes, forbidden method calls, and tenant-isolation violations. Third, an AI QA reviewer reads the intent (your description plus the approved plan) against the generated files and judges whether each scenario is correctly implemented.
Mini apps do not go through these, because there is no code to scan. Their equivalent safeguard is the palette itself: the plan is validated against a fixed set of allowed field types, operators, actions, and recipients before you see it, and validated again on the server when you approve it.
What can the Ask AI agent do — and what can’t it?
The App Builder agent has six tools. Four are read-only: list the custom apps this business has built, report one app’s health, show a built app’s deploy/enable/disable audit trail, and list recent build sessions. Two make changes — enable an app and disable an app — and both ask you to confirm first, only work on apps this business actually built, and are available only to global administrators. Delegated app-admins see the four read tools.
Two limits to be clear about. The agent cannot deploy, roll back, or delete an app — no such tool exists. And it cannot see mini apps at all: it reads the deployed-package register, and mini apps deploy nothing, so they are not in it. Ask about a mini app and it will not find one. Use Your apps or the compose page instead.
Settings
What do the App Builder settings control?
Three toggles are available under Settings (global administrators only):
- Auto-continue long builds (default: on) — when a medium or rich custom-app build hits its iteration limit, the builder extends automatically (up to 2 rounds) instead of pausing for a click.
- Alert on built-app health problems (default: on) — sends a notification when a built app is quarantined, fails to load, has an event handler suspended, or has an auto-update rolled back. Alerts are deduped to at most one per app per event per 6 hours.
- Alert when a built app has an update available (default: on) — sends a notification when a newer published version of an installed community app is available.
An optional Additional notification recipients field lets you widen alerts to an admin-configured recipient group. Without it, alerts go to the app’s builder and deployer first, then fall back to App Builder’s app-admins.
All of these concern custom-app builds. None of them affects mini apps, which have no build job, no iteration limit, and no deploy step.
Where are a mini app’s own settings?
On the mini app itself, under Manage → App settings. That page carries the app’s fields and where they came from, the vocabulary controls (rename “records” to whatever your business calls them, and relabel the tabs), the full list of objects the app manages, and an on/off switch for the whole app. Turning the app off hides it for everyone; the data is untouched and the settings page stays reachable so you can turn it back on.
More help
- App Builder Overview
- Power Tables Overview — where a mini app’s data lives
- Live Boards Overview — where a mini app’s board lives
- Ask AI — the assistant answers App Builder questions from these articles.