Specimen sheet · OH/22
Design with Lily
A Sam-and-Lily co-built beginner session on escaping the “AI look” in no-code generated apps. The session compared default-prompt output with directed-prompt output, then broke down the four design decisions that fix 80–90% of AI-looking UI: spacing, hierarchy, colour, and polish.
Production notes
Eleven notes from the studio
Everything announced live before the type came out of the drawer.
Super Agents Can Now Build
Sam spoiler-dropped that a small-subset rollout now lets Super Agents prompt and build inside apps. They are moving from automation orchestrators toward actual app builders.
Super Agents Reddit AMA Next Week
The dev team behind Super Agents will host a Reddit AMA on the Base44 Reddit. Date and time are still TBA, with Discord announcement to follow.
Thursday Session = Super Agents
Sam confirmed his first proper Super Agents session, partly because of the new build capability and huge community demand.
Custom Login & Sign Up Beta Is Live
A cohort of Office Hours regulars are testing it now. Feedback will be processed over the next week before broader rollout.
First Base44 Office Hours On YouTube
Discord audio broke for many attendees, so Sam pivoted the unlisted YouTube stress test into the primary platform and restarted from the top.
Multi-Platform Streaming Future
Future sessions are planned to multi-stream to Discord, YouTube, Twitch, and hopefully X.
Partner Directory Rework Coming
The partner directory will gain ratings, reviews, comments, and a more complete directory experience.
South African Payment Gateways In Progress
Drake asked when South African gateways are coming. Sam answered: “Currently working on it.”
3D Game Design: Watch This Space
Sam strongly hinted Base44 will not sit out the coming AI game design wave over the next 12 months.
SEO Session Coming Soon
A dedicated SEO session is being lined up and will be hosted by qualified moderators rather than Sam.
Advanced UX Session By Lily
Floated at the end and met with overwhelming community support. It will happen.
The proof
Same builder, different prompt
ELI5
If your app looks AI-generated, the fix is usually not a new tool — it is a better prompt. Control spacing, hierarchy, colour, and polish; use strong themes and pre-built component libraries; then lock the direction into AI Controls.
The Problem — Why Everything Looks AI
- Generic React and Tailwind defaults create gray cards, blue buttons, centered layouts, smooth gradients, identical fonts, and identical spacing.
- Without explicit direction, every AI builder defaults to the same look — including Base44.
- Sam’s framing: “The fix isn’t a better builder, it’s a better prompt.”
- Lily, Tom, and AJ prove this constantly: same tools and same platform, but very different outputs because of prompting.
The Prompt Comparison
Build me a dashboard page.
Result: obvious AI-looking UI.
Build a dashboard for Acme Co using user metrics, revenue and recent activity. Use a clean editorial layout with confident typography, a cohesive color palette and proper visual hierarchy. Include hover and active states. Adjust the colors and design to fit our current app theme.
Same builder, same content, completely different result.
The studio floor
Four stations, four decisions
Spacing, hierarchy, colour, polish — the four decisions that fix 80–90% of the AI look. Each station below practises its own rule on itself.
Decision 1 — Spacing
- Pick one unit — 4px or 8px — and stick to it everywhere.
- Inconsistent gaps are an instant AI tell.
- Bento layouts and block structures only work properly when spacing is rigidly consistent.
- Sam admitted his own app suffers from this and said it is much easier to get right from the start.
Decision 2 — Hierarchy
- Use a maximum of three font sizes.
- The most important element should be biggest, then decrease as importance decreases.
- Bold and big for headline, mid for subheadings, smallest for body. That is it.
Decision 3 — Colour
- Use one background, one text colour, and one accent colour.
- Add more only when you can justify it.
- Lily’s demo used beige, orange, and black — nothing else — and immediately felt designed rather than generated.
Decision 4 — Polish
- Prompt explicitly for hover states, active states, loading states, and spinners.
- AI forgets these by default unless prompted.
- Words like “luxury” and “premium” can trigger better states, but explicit instructions are better.
- Tom is the resident spinner wizard on Discord and his prompts are legendary.
- SaveDefault
- SaveHover — try it
- SaveActive
- SavingLoading
The shortcut shelf
Borrow taste, then constrain it
Three things Lily and Sam keep within reach so the builder never invents structure from nothing.
The Shortcut — 21st.dev
- 21st.dev is a library of beautifully handcrafted React components.
- Find a component you like, give Base44 the link, and let it implement the structure.
- Do not make the builder invent visual structure from scratch when good component libraries already exist.
Three Skills Lily Recommends
- Apple UI Designer — Apple-style design heuristics.
- Web Design Guidelines — audits React components for design issues.
- UI/UX Design Guide — general UX-first design discipline.
- Workspace skill limit is 100 per workspace.
Theme As The Easiest Guardrail
- Give the AI a theme: Neon Tokyo, retro-future cyberpunk, nature punk, or neon cyberpunk.
- Themes funnel the AI’s defaults through a vocabulary and stop it drifting into generic UI.
- Cyberpunk alone will pull pink, purple, steel, and dark by default, so add typography, palette, and interaction constraints for more control.
Studio practice
Keeping the look in production
Redesigning An Existing App
- Do not overhaul everything at once.
- Pick one master page — usually the dashboard logged-in users see, not the landing page — and design it perfectly.
- Once that page is right, apply the direction outward page by page.
E2E Super Agent For QA
- Open Super Agent, name it, hook it up to your app, and tell it to act as an end-to-end tester.
- It learns your app, runs as a user, checks every feature, and outputs a PDF or email report daily.
- With new build capability, Super Agents can now move toward fixing issues, not just reporting them.
Security Scans Are Non-Deterministic
- LLMs are non-deterministic, so the same prompt can produce different outputs every time.
- Security scans have a bias toward suggesting changes because you only run them when you care about security.
- You will never get two identical scans. This is normal.
AI Controls For Persistent Pre-Prompts
- Bottom-left of chat → cog wheel → AI Controls.
- Anything added there acts as a pre-prompt for every chat message in that project.
- This is better than workspace skills for project-specific design rules because it stays contextual to one app.
The open floor
33 questions from the floor
Everything the community asked while the specimen was on the desk — App Store uploads, themes, redesigns, and where to find a Lily.
All 33 questions shown
Yes. Fonts can come from Google Fonts, and possibly more through NPM libraries. Colours can be specified directly with hex codes.
Sam cannot troubleshoot Transporter directly. Use the standard flow: top right → Publish → App Stores tab → follow the guide. Technical mobile issues should go to the Base44 mobile team via a support ticket.
Open a support ticket. There is a 24-hour SLA. If nothing comes back in that window, escalate through a Discord moderator or Sam.
Discord voice broke, so Lily could not join. Sam walked through the default vs directed prompt comparison live and offered to review Robin’s app with Lily off-stream.
Yes. Existing apps have more context and are messier to change. The best path is to design one page perfectly — usually the logged-in dashboard — then apply outward page by page.
Personal preference. Tom uses Gemini, Sam uses Opus 4.7 for almost everything, Lily has her own preference. Try models and see what works for you.
Use the Partner Directory and search for security specialists. The directory is getting ratings, reviews, and a proper rework soon.
Sam linked it in chat during the session.
It already does. A fuller rework with ratings and reviews is coming.
Top right → Publish → App Stores tab → follow the iOS or Android guide.
It is a useful theme but too broad alone. Add guardrails: typography, palette, hover states, and interaction direction. Theme is good; pair it with constraints.
No, just harder. Start with one master page — usually the dashboard — and apply outward page by page.
Agreed. Theme is one of the best guardrails. Sam referenced the Neon Tokyo / Neon Pay custom login demo from Session #18 as an example.
Base44 is not IONOS. Contact IONOS support or buy a domain from any registrar and connect it to your Base44 app.
Lily and Tom recommend Apple UI Designer, Web Design Guidelines, and UI/UX Design Guide. Sam personally prefers AI Controls for project-specific design pre-prompts.
Yes. Build an E2E Super Agent: hook it to the app, tell it to test every workflow, and output a PDF or email report daily.
Yes. Feed the AI the theme and let it run inside that guardrail.
Current capability is mostly browser 3D through Three.js. Watch this space — Sam expects major AI game-design shifts over the next 12 months.
Already being lined up. It will be run by qualified moderators because SEO is not Sam’s specialty.
Sam asked for elaboration and did not fully answer because the context was unclear.
No drag-and-drop visual editor currently. It may come in the future, but for now build your own visual tools where needed.
Currently working on it.
LLMs are non-deterministic, so scans will vary. Security scans are also biased toward suggesting changes. This is normal.
Keep it short, visual, brighter than beige, audience-appropriate, with animations, video, and bite-sized content.
Find yourselves a Lily. The last 20% comes from real UX expertise and formal design grounding.
app.base44.com → top right icon → Account Settings → Workspace → Skills.
Yes. Sam endorsed mobile-first prompting because it keeps layouts wrapping cleanly across devices.
Prompt directly for the animations you want, browse 21st.dev for examples, or set animation guardrails and let the AI work inside them.
Yes.
Lily said she would share.
Overwhelming yes from the community. Confirmed — it is happening.
Not currently unless you are in the Custom Login & Sign Up beta. Styling unlocks when custom login becomes generally available.
Sam linked the app in both chats and adjusted the screen layout live.
On the moodboard
Watch the full session
The whole studio hour — the prompt comparison, all four decisions, and the live Q&A — pinned for reference.
Heard across the studio
Four lines worth pinning
“The fix isn’t a better builder, it’s a better prompt.”
“If I’m not allowed to spoil it, I am so sorry, John.”
“Find yourselves a Lily.”
“Feed the AI the biscuit and let it run with the theme.”
The tear-off card
Ten takeaways to leave with
Super Agents can now build. A small-subset rollout gives them the ability to prompt and build inside apps, with broader rollout coming over time.
The four decisions that fix 80–90% of the AI look are spacing, hierarchy, colour, and polish.
It is the prompt, not the builder. Constrain the AI with theme, typography, palette, and states.
21st.dev is the shortcut: use pre-built React component inspiration instead of making the builder invent structure from scratch.
Lily recommends three workspace skills: Apple UI Designer, Web Design Guidelines, and UI/UX Design Guide.
For project-specific design guardrails, use AI Controls from the bottom-left cog in chat.
Theme is the easiest guardrail — Neon Tokyo, nature punk, retro-future cyberpunk, and similar prompts funnel the defaults.
Redesign built apps one page at a time. Start with the dashboard, get it perfect, then apply outward.
Custom Login beta is live with a cohort of Office Hours regulars testing it now.
YouTube is now part of the Base44 streaming setup after Discord audio broke during this session.
Pinned references