If you've never used an AI website builder, the marketing copy can feel suspicious. "Just describe what you want" sounds like a slogan. Here's the actual workflow, step by step, with screenshots from a real project.
You hit the homepage at lovable.dev, sign in with Google or GitHub, and click "New Project." You'll be staring at a chat interface with one big text box. That's the whole UI for the first prompt.
This is where most people freeze. Don't overthink it. The more specific you are, the better the result, but you can always iterate. A bad first prompt costs you about 60 seconds.
A good first prompt has three parts: what the app does, who uses it, and a few specific features you know you want. Example:
"Build a directory of indie SaaS tools. Visitors can filter by category and search by name. Each tool has a name, screenshot, description, and link. Logged-in users can submit new tools, which I approve before they show up."
Submit. Lovable starts generating. You'll see file names scroll by as it builds the database schema, the routing, the components, and the styles. This takes 1 to 3 minutes for a first build.
Lovable shows you a live preview of the app inline. Click around. Try to break it. Note what's wrong, what's missing, and what you want to change. This is where the real work starts.
The first version will not be perfect. It might be 70% of what you wanted. That's normal. The next prompts get you to 95%.
This is the loop. You spot something wrong, you describe the fix, Lovable updates the code, the preview refreshes. Examples of real follow-up prompts:
Each prompt costs credits. Small changes are cheap (1 to 3 credits). Big features are more expensive (5 to 15 credits). You'll see the cost before each prompt runs.
By default, Lovable provisions a Supabase project for you. You can see the database tables, edit schemas, and run SQL queries from inside Lovable. Auth is one prompt away: "Add login with Google."
If you want full control, you can connect your own Supabase project, your own Stripe account, your own custom API keys. Everything that's "magic" can be made manual.
Click "Publish." Pick a domain (lovable subdomain for free, custom domain on Pro). Lovable handles SSL, deploys to a CDN, and gives you a live URL in under a minute. Push the GitHub sync on if you want to edit locally or back up the code.
That's the whole loop. Idea, prompt, preview, iterate, ship. The longest part is figuring out what you actually want.