Office Hours #75 · 7 October 2026
Ask anything.
We'll try.
An hour of real builder questions: Claude, Stripe, branches, handoffs, and one free cap.
Wednesday drop-in
Fast questions,
real answers.
Sam runs a Wednesday drop-in with a long queue of questions. He sets expectations early: AI is not gospel, so correct it with sources and guardrails. Factual one-liners are faster to search than to ask in a live session.
He shows how to connect Claude Code to Base44 through the connector in under a minute, recommends webhooks for keeping Stripe subscription status in sync, and points builders to his video guide on mixing public pages with staff-only dashboards. He explains why an identical prompt can fail one evening and work the next morning: try a different model, use Compare, and avoid peak hours.
Other topics include branches with test data for colleagues, partner handoffs between workspaces, act-as-user privacy and your own Terms of Service, the cost of backend functions that run but do nothing, and a bring-your-own-OpenAI-credits idea modelled on remove.bg. Becca wins a Base44 cap in a wheel spin run by Lily, and Sam previews Thursday's community awards.
Handing work to others
Clients, colleagues,
users, agents.
- 01
Clients
Contract first, then make them admin, move workspaces, and transfer ownership.
- 02
Colleagues
Branches with test data keep production safe.
- 03
Users
Act-as-user is powerful, so cover it in your policies.
- 04
Agents
Claude or ChatGPT can drive Base44 through the connector.
6 lessons
Small habits,
big saves.
- 01
Connect Claude to Base44 in one message
Open Claude Code and ask it to connect to Base44 using the Base44 connector, then log in once. Give it an existing app's URL, or a blank app's URL, and prompt away. The same flow works with ChatGPT.
- 02
Keep subscriptions in sync with webhooks
For monthly and yearly Stripe plans, use webhooks to keep premium status in step with renewals, failures, cancellations, and refunds. A lighter alternative is to fetch the latest status when the subscription page loads.
- 03
When a prompt fails, change the model
Revert the failure and resend on a stronger model, then use Compare to try two more. LLMs also degrade at peak hours, roughly 17:00–20:00 UK time, so the same prompt may work fine the next day.
- 04
Write a PRD before the first prompt
Planning the full product requirements up front, with any tool, consistently produces a better app.
- 05
Give collaborators a branch with test data
Create a branch, enable test data for it, and a colleague can redesign freely without touching production records. Review and merge when it is ready.
- 06
Cover admin powers in your policies
Act-as-user lets owners see what a user sees. That is normal for any app you control, but your privacy policy and Terms of Service must cover it, and sensitive data such as private messages should be encrypted.
Security week,
awards first.
As stated on 7 October 2026.
- Update 01
Security Week is next week
Sam and Robert will cover RLS basics on Tuesday, a security drop-in on Wednesday, and go-live readiness on Thursday.
- Update 02
Community celebration tomorrow
Thursday's Office Hours is the September awards show with Community Pillar roles, community strategy, and a spoiler for a huge end-of-month event.
- Update 03
Game Jam closes in 24 hours
About 23 hours remained to submit a game to the Launchpad.
- Update 04
App folders are coming back
Sam says folders were moved as part of a large upcoming launch and will return in a better form.
Every question,
answered.
Every substantive question from the hour, including answers the hosts could not confirm.
18 of 18 answers
Tell it what is wrong and why, give it sources, and add guardrails such as sources to avoid. AI is not an encyclopedia, and the same prompt can produce different outputs.
There is no phone or one-to-one support. Tickets start with an AI agent and escalate to humans. Office Hours is the live touchpoint.
Clear the old records at your domain provider and follow the steps in Base44's dashboard Domains section. Sharing screenshots of both with an LLM can help.
No. Optimisation decides cost and speed, not headcount.
No. Only payments through the Stripe or Base44 payments connectors count.
Yes.
This is common and covered in Security Week. Sam linked his December 2025 video guide that walks through it.
Yes. Use the same security approach, or better, use branches and merge when they are ready.
Apps that use paid features stop working. Payments need backend functions, so they stop on the free plan. Apps without those features stay live.
Have a contract, make sure the client has logged in and is an admin, move the app to their workspace, transfer ownership, and remove yourself.
Not if your privacy policy and Terms of Service cover admin access. You are responsible for those, and for encrypting sensitive data.
There is no limit and no plan requirement.
Not intentionally. If an update does cause downtime, restoring service is treated as an emergency.
Prompt the builder to use a different Google font, or upload your own font through Git sync.
Yes. Invocations cost about 0.1 credits per 100 runs even when they do nothing, plus the normal cost of any integration they call.
Sam had not heard of it. A chat member said OpenAI supports it in participating apps. He sees a remove.bg-style tier where heavy users cover their own LLM costs.
Every builder is constantly improving its design output, and Base44 has teams working on exactly that.
Possibly not with the native wrapper. Sam's own app, which is not wrapped by Base44, has a custom splash screen.
Watch the original
An hour
of Q&A.
Open on YouTube Billing questions the hosts could not resolve in public are summarised briefly. The bring-your-own-credits feature was described by a chat member and is not confirmed by Base44.
Bring this to your next build
Keep
building.
- 01
Correct AI with sources and guardrails instead of trusting it blindly.
- 02
Use Stripe webhooks for subscription status.
- 03
On a failed prompt, revert and switch models, and avoid peak hours.
- 04
Hand colleagues a branch with test data.
- 05
Make sure your policies cover admin powers like act-as-user.
Keep learning
Further reading.
- Public pages plus staff-only areas video guide (Dec 2025)
- Base44 feedback board
- Base44 merch store
- Unofficial Office Hours archive
Unofficial community archive · All Office Hours