Office Hours · Session #35
Building Base44 Apps With Claude
Two agents, one bench — a Claude window and the builder window, joined by a live sync cable.
Sam's first session back after a week in Amsterdam at the in-person Base44 community event. A beginner walkthrough of how to build and ship Base44 apps using Claude — from basic prompt engineering all the way up to a full Claude Co-work ecosystem connected to your Base44 account. Sam covered connecting the Base44 connector to Claude, sending prompts straight to the builder, and then graduated into Co-work projects for hands-off, credit-saving development. The live demo built a car dealership inventory manager ("Velocity Mercedes-Benz Specialists, Carlisle") entirely through Claude, including a public landing page. Big practical reveal: entity/database changes made through Claude Co-work cost ZERO Base44 credits.
- Prompt lane — costs builder credits
- Entity lane — 0 credits
Bench notes
Pinned above the workbench
6 notes from the session, kept in reading order.
Sam Back From Amsterdam
Sam returned after attending an in-person Base44 community event in Amsterdam. Big thank you to Drake, Robert, and Discord moderator Charles for covering the previous week's Office Hours during his absence. The Wed 10 and Thu 11 June sessions were cancelled while he was away.
This Week's Schedule
Tuesday (Claude session), Wednesday (Open Drop-In), Thursday is a Father's Day Special — a custom-themed live build-along using the official Base44 Father's Day landing page, with custom backdrops/overlays planned. Friday is a B2B Hour with Nick covering "improving and expanding an existing Base44 app" — a common blocker Sam heard about repeatedly at the Amsterdam event.
Backend-as-a-Service Masterclass — Next Monday
Not 100% confirmed yet, but a full session on backend-as-a-service is being lined up for the following Monday, led by technical staff (likely from the Tel Aviv office), on-camera with screen share. Pitched as a beginner-friendly masterclass — no prior knowledge needed. ~6 days out from this session.
- Milestone
Sam's 1-Year Anniversary
End of this month marks Sam's 1 year as a Base44 user; he's nearly 4 months into being an employee (Community Engagement Manager).
YouTube Newsletter Push
A newsletter went out mid-session, spiking the Discord audience to ~100 people. Office Hours run in parallel on Discord and YouTube every session, with Twitch teased as a future third platform.
Fable 5 / Mythos Access
Sam confirmed he has no inside information on if/when Fable 5 returns; his personal (non-company) guess is it likely returns renamed/re-released rather than as "Fable." Not a topic he's involved in.
The escalation ladder
One prompt up to parallel windows
7 teaching points from the session, climbed rung by rung.
A single prompt
Claude as the prompt engineer — talk first, spend later.
What Prompt Engineering Means (the baseline)
The minimum any external LLM does for you is pre-prompting — taking a rough one-sentence idea in plain English and expanding it into a structured, feature-rich prompt that a no-code builder like Base44 can do more with. Example Sam used: "I want an app to track food and water for my 15 cats on different schedules" → expanded into a fleshed-out prompt with features, structure, and design direction.
Discuss Mode Parallel
Using Claude as a conversation layer before the builder is like Base44's own Discuss Mode (toggle in the chat window) — you chat back and forth without actioning anything. Claude adds the benefit of full app context (entities, code, screenshots) while preserving builder credits. Sam noted users used to "swear at the agent" and send messages like "Hi" → Enter, burning credits; talking to Claude first preserves them.
The connector
Wire Claude to your Base44 account, permissions in hand.
Connecting Claude To Base44
- In Claude: File → Settings → Connectors → Customize (or just go straight to Customize).
- Find the Base44 connector (press + and search if it's not listed), install it, authenticate with your Base44 account.
- Once connected, Claude has as much access to your Base44 account as you grant it.
- Permissions are configurable per-tool (create, edit, read-only). Sam recommends leaving them OUT of the box (not green-lighting everything) so Claude prompts you for approval on each action rather than acting fully autonomously.
- Once connected and you mention Base44, Claude normally runs a Q&A first (location, business MO, design preferences via text fields and radio buttons), then builds a large detailed prompt and sends it to the builder with an approve/deny gate.
A Co-work project
A full working environment connected to the published app.
Two Ways To Build With Claude
- Direct prompt-to-builder — Claude acts as a prompt engineer, sends the enhanced prompt straight to the Base44 builder. Easy, but costs Base44 credits.
- Claude Co-work projects — A full working environment with skills and MCP connections. Create a project, give it a vision/context, connect it to your published Base44 app (paste the app link or app ID — the app ID is the string in the URL). Claude then reads your entities, prompt history, and code to get the lay of the land.
The Big Credit-Saving Reveal
When an app is linked in Claude Co-work, Claude can read, update, and push changes to your databases/entities WITHOUT sending a prompt through the builder — meaning zero Base44 credits. In the demo, full entity restructures, new records, and dropdown fields were all implemented this way with no credits changing hands. Only actual builder prompts (e.g. generating a landing page) cost credits.
Entity changes ride the cable — no builder prompt, no charge.Importing Existing Work Into Co-work
Projects → New Project lets you: import from files, bring a project from another Claude chat, start from scratch, or point it at a desktop folder of assets/prompts/context as a reference hub. A 6-month-old app can be pivoted into a Co-work project by feeding it heavy context and connecting it to the Base44 app.
Parallel windows
Several Co-work sessions on the same app, at the same time.
Multiple Parallel Co-work Windows
You can run multiple Co-work sessions on the same app simultaneously — e.g. one window dedicated only to database/entity work, another acting purely as a "creative agent" firing design prompts. They can work at the same time.
The build between the windows
What the bench shipped live
Sam's first session back after Amsterdam. A beginner walkthrough of building and shipping Base44 apps using Claude — from basic prompt engineering up to a full Claude Co-work ecosystem connected to your Base44 account. Live demo built a car dealership inventory manager entirely through Claude. Big reveal: entity/database changes via Claude Co-work cost ZERO Base44 credits.
Passed across the bench
Questions from the floor
30 questions answered live, kept in session order.
Showing 30 of 30 entries
The recording
Watch both windows at work
The full session as it streamed — prompts out of one window, an app arriving in the other.
Office Hours #35 — Building Base44 Apps With ClaudeYouTube · opens in a new tabTake these off the bench
What the session leaves you
Entity and database changes made through Claude Co-work cost ZERO Base44 credits — only actual builder prompts (like generating a landing page) cost credits.
Leave Claude's Base44 connector permissions OUT of the box so you approve each action, rather than green-lighting full autonomy.
The Base44 app ID is just the string in your published app's URL — paste the whole link into Claude and it'll figure it out.
Run parallel Co-work windows: one for database work, one as a pure design agent — they work simultaneously.
Talking to Claude as a layer before the builder preserves Base44 credits (no more burning credits on "Hi" → Enter).
Claude Code (Git two-way sync) costs no Base44 credits but is complex; Co-work costs credits but a layman can use it.
Exported Base44 apps won't run elsewhere without rebuilding the missing SDK (invoke LLM and other functions) — the less you depend on Base44, the easier the rebuild.
Opus 4.8 is Sam's pick for the best model, including for fixing stubborn bugs.
Left on the bench
Every link and reference shared during the session.
- Unofficial Office Hours archive
- Base44 events page
- Claude (Co-work, connectors)
- Custom Google OAuth setup guide (in Base44 publish flow / docs)