First: the 4 golden safety rules
Say them together before the computer turns on. Every build day starts this way:
- Grown-up drives. The account, the email, the typing: all grown-up's.
- No real names, school, address, or phone numbers ever go into the AI.
- No card numbers. If the screen ever asks for money, that is a grown-up decision on a different day.
- Feels strange? Stop and show your grown-up. Right away, no trouble, always.
The screen you will see
Lovable's screen has 3 zones. Learn them and you cannot get lost:
Build time! Follow the steps
- Grown-up: go to lovable.dev, make the account (it is an adult-account website), and check the free plan is selected. Free is all we need.
- Kid: read your wish out loud. Grown-up: type it into the talk zone exactly, and press send.
- Both: watch zone 2. The AI is writing real computer code from YOUR wish. It takes a minute or two. It is okay to say "whoa".
- Kid: when the app appears, YOU do the tapping. Try the big button. Try Screen 2. Does it match your drawing? Hold your drawing up next to the screen and compare!
- Spot a problem? Point at it and make a fix-wish: "When I tap ___, I wanted ___, but ___ happened." Grown-up types it. One fix-wish at a time!
- Happy with it? Grown-up taps Publish. Your app gets its own link on the internet. Send it to ONE family member's phone tonight. 🎉
Sometimes the AI builds something weird. A green button you never asked for. A missing screen. That is NORMAL, even grown-up engineers see this every day. You do not start over; you make one fix-wish at a time. Builders are patient. That is the whole secret.
Lovable gives a few free build-wishes each day, like tickets at a fair. When today's tickets are done, the fair closes until tomorrow, and that is fine. NEVER pay for more tickets without the grown-up deciding on purpose, on another day, with time to think.
The app came out with the wrong colour button. What does a genius builder do?
Finish this to open Lesson 4: an app with a robot brain inside!