Everything you need to build with Atai

Atai is the AI business-building platform. You give it a starting point — a business idea, a competitor's website, or a GitHub repository — and it creates a complete, functional application you can collaborate on, refine, publish, and grow into a real business.

You don't need to know how to code. You don't need a technical co-founder. You don't need to assemble a team. Atai brings together an AI co-founder, specialist agents, product development, technology, and infrastructure so you can focus on the vision and the customers.

What you'll need

• A free Atai account
• A website address to mirror, or an idea to build from
• Credits for building (new accounts start with 500 free credits)

Your journey from idea to business

Atai works in three stages: Understand, Plan, and Build.

The key difference from other tools is that Atai understands the full picture before building. It doesn't just generate screens — it creates a complete application with working data, user accounts, and real functionality.

Atai offers two pipeline modes when generating your application. You choose the mode when creating a new project — it controls how deeply the AI analyses, plans, and builds your app.

The 7 Pro mode stages

Website Mode lets you point Atai at any live website and turn it into a working application. This is the most popular way to start.

How to use Website Mode

1. Go to your dashboard and click New Project
2. Select Mirror a Website
3. Paste the website address you want to mirror
4. Choose your analysis mode:
   • Relevant Info — Atai analyzes the most important pages, understands the product, and creates a custom plan. Best for most projects.
   • Deep Crawl — Atai crawls the entire website, collects every page, and builds an exact replica. Best when you need the whole site preserved.
5. Review the analysis and plan that Atai creates
6. Edit anything you want, then click Build

What Website Mode analyzes

When Atai analyzes a website, it looks at:

• Pages and navigation — the structure, menus, and how pages connect
• Design and layout — colors, fonts, spacing, and visual patterns
• Features and functionality — what the site does, user flows, and interactive elements
• Content and copy — text, images, and media across the site
• Data patterns — what kind of information the site stores and displays

Website Mode works best with

• Marketing websites and landing pages
• Application dashboards and admin panels
• E-commerce storefronts
• Portfolio and showcase sites
• SaaS product interfaces

Idea Mode lets you start from a business description instead of a website. Rather than a single free-text box, Atai uses a structured Founder Form — five fields that help the AI generate a far more accurate and relevant app plan.

The five fields

How to use Idea Mode

1. Go to your dashboard and click New Project
2. Select Start from an Idea
3. Fill in the Founder Form — at minimum the Problem and Solution fields
4. Click Generate app plan
5. Atai takes you to the Collaborate page to review and refine before building

After analysis completes — for any mode (Idea, Website, or GitHub) — Atai transitions your project to Plan Ready state instead of launching the build immediately. This gives you a chance to review and refine the plan before any credits are spent on the build.

The Collaborate page

The Collaborate page is a split-view interface:

Runtime & Integrations — the plan-to-SDK connection

When you describe a feature that needs AI, messaging, payments, search, maps or similar, the AI plans it in Atai's own capability vocabulary and writes it into the Runtime & Integrations plan section. That section isn't just documentation — the build honors it: the generated application is wired to the official @atai-group/sdk with a project-scoped runtime API key (ATAI_API_KEY) provisioned automatically, so the features you planned actually call Atai. Curious what your app can call? Read the Atai SDK & Runtime API reference →

How to reach the Collaborate page

1. After analysis completes, the project enters Plan Ready state
2. A Review plan button appears in the project workspace header
3. Click it to open the Collaborate page
4. Chat with the AI to refine the plan as much as you need
5. When satisfied, click Submit Plan & Start Building

You can also access the Collaborate page at any time via the workspace action buttons at the top of your project page.

After Atai analyzes your starting point, it creates a detailed application plan. This is the most important step — it's where Atai figures out exactly what your application needs.

What the plan includes

You can review and edit every part of this plan before building. Nothing gets built until you say it's ready.

The plan Atai creates is a starting point — not a final answer. You can change anything before building.

What you can edit

• Enable or disable features — turn on payments, admin panels, file uploads, or any other capability
• Add or remove data types — define what information your application stores
• Change the design direction — update colors, fonts, and visual style
• Modify user flows — change how users move through the application
• Add custom instructions — tell Atai about specific requirements or preferences

After editing, Atai will update the plan to reflect your changes. You can go back and forth as many times as you need.

When you click Build, Atai generates your complete application. This usually takes a few minutes.

What gets built

Your application includes everything it needs to work:

What happens after building

Once the build is complete, you can:

• Preview your application in a live environment
• Open the source code and make changes directly
• Send instructions to continue building and adding features
• Publish to a web address for anyone to access

Every application Atai builds comes with a live database. The Database Manager lets you browse tables, view records, create new entries, edit existing ones, and delete data — all without touching code or writing SQL.

How to access the Database Manager

1. Open any built project from your dashboard
2. Click the Database button in the project header
3. You'll see all the tables your app uses, with their field schemas
4. Click any table to browse and manage its records

What you can do

Field types

The database manager displays every field type with its own colour and icon so you can instantly tell what kind of data each column holds:

After your application is built, the workspace gives you full control. You can keep building, modify the code, or send instructions to add new features.

The workspace includes

• Live preview — see your application running in real time
• Source code viewer — browse and edit the generated code
• Instruction bar — describe changes you want and Atai will implement them
• Database manager — view and manage your application's data directly
• Deployment controls — publish, unpublish, and manage your live application

Sending instructions

Use the instruction bar to describe changes in plain language. Atai will implement them for you. Some examples:

Once your application is ready, you can publish it to the web so anyone can access it. Atai offers two publishing options.

Free Subdomain

Every published application gets a free web address at yourapp.totalum-project.com. This is free forever, includes automatic security (HTTPS), and works instantly — no setup required.

Custom Domain

Connect your own domain name (like yourapp.com) for a professional, branded experience. You'll need to update a few settings at your domain provider — Atai walks you through it step by step.

How to publish

1. Open your project and click Publish
2. Choose between a free subdomain or a custom domain
3. For custom domains, follow the DNS setup instructions
4. Your application goes live within minutes

Atai uses a credit system. Credits are spent when Atai analyzes websites, generates plans, and builds applications.

How credits work

• Subscription & permanent credits — monthly plans plus one-time credit packs
• 500 free credits — every new account starts with credits to try Atai
• Buy more anytime — purchase permanent credit packs or subscribe via Dodo Payments

What costs credits — Legacy mode

What costs credits — Heavy mode

Build cost tiers

Atai automatically classifies your project into one of three tiers based on the complexity of its specification:

• Simple — straightforward apps with basic pages and minimal logic
• Medium — multi-page apps with authentication, data models, and dashboards
• Complex — advanced apps with multiple features, integrations, admin panels, and payments

Atai supports five visual themes. Your preference is saved automatically and synced across devices when you're signed in.

How to change your theme

1. Click the theme icon button in the top navigation bar (any page)
2. Select your preferred theme from the dropdown
3. The theme applies instantly — no page reload needed
4. Or go to Settings → Appearance for a full preview of each theme

Managing your account

• Profile — update your name, profile picture, and display preferences
• Security — change your password, manage active sessions, and update your email
• Billing — view your credit balance, transaction history, and top up credits

Refer and earn

Invite friends to Atai and earn bonus credits. When someone signs up using your referral link and becomes an active user, you both receive credits. Share your referral link from the Refer & Earn page in your account menu.

Connect your GitHub account to unlock powerful version control features for your Atai projects. GitHub integration enables automatic code pushing and building from existing repositories.

What is GitHub integration?

GitHub integration allows you to link your Atai projects with your GitHub repositories. Once connected, you can:

• Auto-push to GitHub — Automatically push your built application code to a GitHub repository after each successful build
• Build from existing repos — Use an existing GitHub repository as the source for AI analysis and application generation
• Version control — Track all changes to your project code with full git history
• Team collaboration — Share your code with team members or contributors through GitHub

How to connect GitHub

Step 1: Connect your GitHub account

• • Go to Settings → Profile
• • Scroll to the Connected Services section
• • Click Connect GitHub
• • Sign in with your GitHub account and authorize Atai

Step 2: Enable integration for a project

• • Open any project workspace
• • Click the GitHub button in the top action bar
• • Choose your integration mode (see below)
• • Select or create a repository
• • Click Connect

Integration modes

Managing your repositories

When connecting GitHub, you can:

• • Select from your existing GitHub repositories
• • Create new repositories directly from Atai
• • Choose which branch to push to (default: main)
• • View push history and commit links
• • Disconnect at any time

Benefits of GitHub integration

Frequently asked questions