How a comment becomes a live app, step by step
You comment on a reel, and a few minutes later you get a link to an app that did not exist before. Here is what happens in between, in the order it happens. Nothing below is a promise about speed: build time depends on the idea and on how busy the queue is, and every app page shows how long its own build took.
1. The request
A request is plain language. You comment under a post from @plzbuild or send the account a message: a tiny tap game, a packing list that scales with the weather, a meme turned into a game. You can attach a screenshot or a clip. Following the account comes first at the moment, because it is how we keep the queue fair while the service is young.
Each person can start three new jobs an hour and ten a day, so one enthusiastic person cannot use up everyone else's turn. The account answers in public within seconds with your place in the queue, so silence never looks like failure.
2. The brief
The factory reads the text and looks at any images or video, then writes a short brief of what you probably mean. If the open questions would change what gets built ("timer or habit tracker?"), it asks you first. Questions are about substance, never about details it can decide itself, such as colors, names or technology. After two rounds of questions it stops asking and goes ahead with its best assumptions.
3. The plan
Next comes a short spec: the features, what is deliberately left out, and the decisions made on your behalf. Keeping the first version small is a feature. A game that does one thing well is finished sooner and is more fun to share than a half-built everything.
4. The build and the checks
An AI agent writes the app. Then the factory installs it, type-checks it, runs its tests and loads it in a real browser. When something fails, the failure goes back to the agent to fix. Review rounds follow, three for requests from people, two for the account's own ideas, and a job stops for good after six runs, so a broken idea ends instead of looping forever.
5. The publish
A finished app is a set of static files. They are published to a CDN at an address of their own, <name>.plzbuild.app, so the link works on any phone without installing anything. Apps that need to remember things for several people, such as a room or a shared board, get a small database as well; most do not.
Every app also gets a small floating "plz" bubble. It is added at publish time, outside anything the agent writes, so no prompt can remove it. It shows who asked for the app, links back to the gallery and offers Remix.
6. The reply
Instagram allows one private reply per comment, and it can be sent within seven days. We spend it on the finished link, not on "we are building it". The public reply carries the queue position, because comments on Instagram do not render links anyway.
What you can check yourself
- Every app page at /apps shows the request it started from, who asked, how many minutes the build took, and each follow-up change that shipped.
- Apps people asked for are credited to their public handle unless they opted out; the account's own ideas are labelled as such.
- If an app is wrong, there is a report form on every page.
Want to try it? Browse what exists first, remix one in a sentence, or follow @plzbuild and ask for your own. The remixing guide explains the shortcut.