Chatting

Chatting with AI (aka "prompting") is more of an art than a science, but here are a few tips to help you get more out of chatting with AI in Dyad.

Use multiple chats

Unlike most other AI app builders, Dyad allows you to create multiple chats (conversations) for the same app which gives you better control over the context.

From a current chat for an app, you can create a new chat, which will create a clean context for the same app. This is helpful, for example, if your previous chat with the AI went off the rails or started going in circles.

Because all chats for a specific app are working on the same codebase, then the versions are shared.

Detailed first prompts

Be as specific as you can, particularly with the first prompt in building an app. This will help the AI understand what you're looking for rather than guessing.

Bad prompt: (too vague)

Build an AI food scanner app.

Good prompt: (specific user flows)

Build an AI food scanner app. It should have a welcome screen which is a carousel with a few different sections, each section should contain an image and a text explaining the benefit of the app. In the main screen, the user can upload an image which is sent to an AI which will predict what food it is and the number of calories and the user can confirm.

Writing a good prompt takes effort, but it'll save you a lot of trouble because you'll get what you want.

Be specific when fixing issues

A lot of work in making an app look nice is polishing the rough edges, which are bound to happen—even with a good first prompt.

Bad prompt: (unclear what to fix)

Fix the button

Good prompt: (clear about what the issue is)

Fix the submit button. it's overlapping with the cancel button. there should be more space.

The problem with the bad prompt is that it's so vague that: 1) the AI needs to guess which button you want fixed and 2) the AI needs to guess what's the issue. Sometimes, even with an under-specified prompt, it will work, often it doesn’t—meaning you’ll need to undo. Speaking of which...

Test often & undo fearlessly

One challenge with AI is that it can make unexpected changes, so I recommend you regularly test your app's main flows in the preview panel to make sure nothing is broken (e.g. every few prompts). If something is off, use the undo feature, which is explained in the versioning guide.