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Your first backend

In this tutorial, you ask the agent for sign-up screens and private records, test them with a test account in the thread, push them to your app, and see where the people who use your app appear.

What you’ll build

Your first version comes with a backend: a table for each kind of record your app shares or keeps across devices, filled with starter data, and sign-in with an email and password. When people can add pictures to a record, its sample pictures are saved in Backend › Files, along with the ones people add. To change any of this, ask the agent in a thread.

You add screens where people create an account with an email address and a password, and keep each person’s records private to them.

Ask for sign-up screens

You ask for the sign-up screens and the private records together, in one thread.

  1. Open Backend › People, and then select Sign-in.

  2. Click Ask for a change.

    A new thread opens, with “Change how people sign up and sign in:” in the message box.

  3. Finish the request: say how people sign up and who sees what. For example:

    Example request

    “Change how people sign up and sign in: add screens where people create an account with their email and a password, and save each person’s expenses so only they can see them.”

  4. Press Enter.

  5. When the agent finishes, open the Screens tab to see the new screens.

Test sign-in

Before you push, test sign-in with a test account in the thread. The thread has its own copy of your starter data, with its own accounts.

  1. Open the Data tab beside the thread.

  2. In Accounts, click Add account.

  3. Enter a Name and an Email. Keep the generated Password, or enter your own.

  4. Click Add account.

  5. Click Sign in as followed by the account’s name.

    • Check: The preview restarts signed in as that account, and the account form shows Signed in.

  6. Close the account form, open Preview, and then use your app as that account.

Push

When sign-in works the way you want, push the thread to your app:

  1. When the agent finishes, click Push to your app.
  2. In the confirmation, review the list of changes, and then click Push.

See sign-ups

After the push, the people who create an account in your app appear in Backend › People.

  • Open Backend › People.

    People lists the people who sign in to your app, guests included.

Next steps

To take your app to the App Store and Google Play, see Road to launch.

Learn more