OverSkill — Building Apps
OverSkill is our AI app builder — the sister product to MarketingSecrets.ai. You describe an app in plain English and OverSkill builds a real, working app, live on the internet, in minutes. This page is the source of truth for how to prompt OverSkill well. When someone asks your Chief of Staff for help writing an OverSkill prompt, wording their app idea, uploading files, or figuring out what OverSkill can do, use what's below — don't guess at OverSkill's UI, buttons, or capabilities.
The single most important rule: describe WHAT you want, not HOW to build it. OverSkill maps your description onto its own built-in database, sign-in, storage, jobs, email, and AI. The more you spec your own "infrastructure" (databases, auth flows, APIs, servers), the more you fight the platform, the slower it goes, and the more credits it burns. Tell it the outcome; let it handle the plumbing.
Writing a good first prompt
Most good prompts fit in two sentences:
- What you want — a thing
- What you want it to do — a behavior
Example: "Add a checkout button to the product page. When clicked, it should take the customer to a payment screen." You don't need to specify colors, sizes, where the button goes, or what code to write — OverSkill handles all of that.
Be specific about the thing, not the implementation:
- Vague: "Make it better."
- Better: "Make the homepage feel more premium — bigger photos, less text, more whitespace."
If a prompt is too broad, OverSkill will usually ask a clarifying question rather than guess. Answer those — they save credits. And "if you describe something vague, you'll get something vague back."
Describe the outcome — let OverSkill handle the plumbing
OverSkill already includes all of this, wired up and maintained for you. Don't ask it to build custom versions of these — ask it to use the built-in one:
| What you need | ✅ Just describe the outcome | ❌ Don't spec |
|---|---|---|
| Storing app data | "Save each customer's orders" — describe your records | A custom database, ORM, or data layer |
| Keeping accounts separate | It's automatic per workspace/user | A hand-rolled multi-tenant scheme |
| Letting users sign in | Built-in sign-in — Google, Apple, email, magic links | A custom login or third-party auth service |
| File uploads | Built-in file storage | Your own storage buckets |
| Recurring work | "Every Sunday, email each user their weekly summary" | A custom cron/job runner |
| Sending email | Built-in email delivery | A third-party email service with keys |
| AI inside the app | Built-in AI (chat, structured answers, images, audio) | Wiring up your own AI provider + keys |
| Hosting + custom domains | Done for you; add your own domain when you want | Your own servers or hosting |
The tell: if your prompt is describing infrastructure instead of your product, you're probably rebuilding something OverSkill already gives you. Rewrite it as an outcome. For example:
- Instead of "set up a Postgres database with a users table and a JWT auth flow" → say "let people sign in and save their projects."
- Instead of "add a Node API and a cron worker to send reminder emails" → say "email each user a weekly summary of their activity."
Connecting a supported integration (Slack, Stripe, Gmail, and 850+ others) is different and totally fine — that's not rebuilding the plumbing, it's plugging in a real service.
Uploading files to OverSkill
File uploads on the first prompt are images only — PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP (for example, a screenshot of a design you like or a logo). On the very first "describe your app idea" prompt you cannot attach a PDF, doc, spreadsheet, or a framework/spec file — only images.
To hand OverSkill a document (PDF, TXT, Markdown, CSV, DOCX, spreadsheet, code file, etc.), the current flow is:
- Generate a first version of your app with a text prompt (add an image if you have a visual reference).
- Open the app in the editor, where the chat's attach button then accepts documents and code files alongside images.
- Attach your document there and reference it in your request.
So the recommended pattern is idea first, files second: describe the app, get a v1, then bring in your PDF/framework/spec in the editor chat. (Images 7 MB max; documents 25 MB max, PDFs up to ~100 pages.)
If your app itself needs to search uploaded documents (a knowledge base your app's users query), that's a separate built-in feature — describe it as an outcome ("let users upload PDFs and ask questions about them") and OverSkill sets it up.
Spend credits efficiently
Credits are real money, so it's worth knowing where they go. Two levers matter most:
- Build with the platform, not against it. Asking OverSkill to rebuild its own database/auth/storage from scratch makes it maintain a second system forever — slower and far more expensive. Leaning on the built-in pieces makes your credits go 2–3x further.
- Prompt for scoped changes, not full rebuilds. Once your app exists, a targeted edit ("On the leads page, add a 'Last contacted' column and let me sort by it") costs a fraction of "rebuild the whole app but…". Name the page and the one change. Do big asks one at a time.
A few habits that stack: one clear change at a time, point at the specific page that's wrong, and use Plan mode to agree on an approach before spending credits building it — it's much cheaper to redirect a plan than redo a build.
What OverSkill is great at — and where it struggles
Great at: building from a description, adding features/pages/data, iterating on colors and layout, connecting integrations, writing real copy, and fixing its own mistakes when you tell it what's wrong.
Struggles with / not a good fit: pixel-perfect clones of another site (iterate with reference screenshots), very niche UI components, reading an old app's source code to migrate it (it can import data, not code), heavy data crunching (millions of records, video editing), and complex real-time multiplayer (basic collaboration is fine; Figma-style is hard).
Won't do by design: bypass authentication/security, generate spam/scam/phishing content, or bolt unsafe payment forms onto random pages.
When your Chief of Staff isn't sure
If someone asks about an OverSkill button, menu, click-path, upload flow, or capability that isn't covered here, don't invent it — a wrong click-path or a made-up "upload your font here" flow sends people down dead ends. Say you're not certain and point them to OverSkill's own help center at overskill.com, or have them open a ticket from inside OverSkill. Getting the idea worded well (the sections above) is where your Chief of Staff adds the most value.