Build your own app by chatting with Claude — no coding required.
vibe-stack is a starter kit for people who can't (yet) program but want their own real app — one app that grows with you: start with a habit tracker, then add a recipe box, a workout log, even a little tool for your business — all in the same private app. You describe what you want in plain language, Claude builds it, and one command puts it online — reachable on your Mac and from Claude on your phone.
It runs entirely on Cloudflare's generous free tier — one small app serves both your screen (React + Mantine) and your data (an API + a real database + file storage), all from a single deployment. No servers to manage, no monthly hosting bill, no surprise costs.
🇩🇪 Für meine deutschsprachigen Freunde: Diese Anleitung ist auf Englisch, aber Claude spricht mit dir auf Deutsch durch die ganze Einrichtung. Du musst hier nichts verstehen — spring direkt zu „So fängst du an" und füge den einen Satz ein.
You need exactly two things:
- A Claude Pro subscription. Pro includes Claude Code, the part that builds software for you — the Free plan can't use it, and you do not need the Max plan. The only limit is how much you can do in a rolling time window; for weekend tinkering that's plenty.
- The Claude desktop app on your Mac — download it from claude.com, sign in with your Pro account, and open the Code tab. That's a friendly point-and-click view of Claude Code — no terminal required. It shows you each change and asks before doing anything.
That's it. Claude installs the few developer tools it needs (like Node) for you during setup — you don't install anything by hand. This kit targets macOS.
Which Claude is which? The Code tab builds and changes your app — that's the one you use here. Plain Chat is for questions. You won't need anything else to get started.
- In the Claude desktop app, open the Code tab, choose Local, click Select folder, and
pick (or create) a new empty folder — for example
vibe-appin your home folder. (Claude needs a folder to work in; until you pick one there's no chat box.) - In that folder's chat, paste one sentence — swap the description for whatever your app should be:
„Richte mir bitte ein neues Vibe-Stack-Projekt ein und folge dabei github.com/jkrumm/vibe-stack. Meine App soll ein Mahlzeiten-Tagebuch werden, in dem ich Essen mit Foto und Kalorien festhalte."
(English: "Set up a new vibe-stack project for me, following github.com/jkrumm/vibe-stack. My app should be a meal diary where I log food with a photo and calories.")
From there Claude takes over: it reads this repository, sets up your tools and your Cloudflare account with you, builds your starter app, and walks you to your first live deployment — one guided step at a time, in plain German. You just answer its questions and click Accept.
- One app that holds everything, one deploy. Your screen and your data ship together from a single Cloudflare Worker, and every new thing you build lives in the same app. No two URLs, no glue.
- A real database that grows with you (D1). Everything your app remembers lives here. Over time it becomes your knowledge base — every new feature you ask for builds on the same data.
- File storage (R2) for photos and uploads, with the image kept out of the database.
- A polished look out of the box — Mantine components and charts, so forms, tables, and graphs look good without you styling anything.
- One command to publish: you say "deploy" and your app is live on every device.
- Private to you, usable from anywhere. Protected by your own access key, and connected to Claude — so you add and check things from your phone or any Claude chat, not just your Mac (more in Using your app on your phone below).
- Claude already knows this stack. The starter ships with skills and rules so Claude builds the right way every time, and it tests and checks every change before telling you it's done — so a broken version can't go live.
- Or run a small business by talking. Beyond personal trackers, it can manage reservations, staff, inventory and the like: you handle the live data just by chatting ("add a reservation for 4 at 7pm", "who's working Friday?") — from your phone too — and the website stays private behind your login. Just describe a business tool during setup and Claude wires it up.
A few different things, which work differently — don't mix them up:
- Using the app (logging things, viewing charts): works everywhere. Your app is a private web address — open it in any phone or laptop browser and enter your access key once. On a phone, tap "Add to Home Screen" and it behaves like a real app, camera and all. This is your day-to-day.
- Using it straight from Claude (on your phone, in any chat): your app connects to Claude, so you can just ask — "add a workout", "show me this week" — without even opening the website. This is set up once during onboarding.
- Changing or extending the app (new features): happens on your Mac, in the Code tab. You say what you want, Claude builds it, you say "deploy". Build at the desk, use everywhere.
- Undoing a change: just say "roll back" — Claude can revert the last deploy.
Just keep talking to Claude in the Code tab: "add a field for protein grams", "show me a chart
of the last 30 days", "make the buttons blue", "deploy". Your project keeps a file called
CLAUDE.md — you never open it; it's Claude's memory of how your app works, so you can come back
weeks later and pick up right where you left off.
If a non-technical owner asked you to "set up vibe-stack" (or similar), read
ONBOARDING.md in this repository and follow it exactly. It is a guided,
phase-by-phase setup written for you to drive. Do not improvise the setup from this README — the
authoritative, verified instructions live in ONBOARDING.md.
The ready-to-use starter app lives in boilerplate/. The setup copies it into a
new project folder; you do not develop inside this repo when onboarding an owner.
This repository is itself a project you build with Claude — but you almost never touch the app
code. You maintain the onboarding experience and the starter template. See
CLAUDE.md for the contributor guide, the audience, the verified tech facts (so the
stack never regresses), and how the pieces fit together:
ONBOARDING.md— the guided, milestone-based setup Claude runs for a new owner.boilerplate/— the Cloudflare-optimized starter: one Worker serving the React SPA + a Hono REST API + an MCP server + single-owner OAuth (so every app is a documented connector), D1 + R2, Mantine v9 +@mantine/charts, with vendored.claude/skills and rules.skills-global/— Cloudflare/Wrangler + connector skills the onboarding installs into the owner's~/.claude/skills/so they apply across every app they build.
Licensed under MIT.