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In one sentence: describe what you want in plain English, and Chef hands you a running web app—complete with database, login, file uploads, real-time UI and background jobs—ready to share with the world.

1. Six Quick Questions Everyone Asks

2. Why “Backend-Aware” Matters

Most no-code tools stop at the React shell. When you need users, files and workflows, you’re back to wiring Firebase, Supabase or AWS—exactly the plumbing Chef generates for you:

1. Convex gives you reactive queries, transactions, file blobs and scheduled functions out of the box.
2. The AI loop knows those APIs exist, so it emits:

   • query/getTasks.ts
   • mutation/createTask.ts
   • action/cleanupOldFiles.ts
   • React hooks that subscribe to data live.

End result:
“A todo list with sign-up, file attachments and real-time collaboration” becomes a deployable URL, not a demo shell.

3. Folder Tour—Where to Look First

chef/
├─ app/                 // Vite + React pages, components, routes
├─ convex/              // Database schema + functions + cron
├─ chef-agent/          // System prompt, tool defs, model calls
├─ template/            // Seed repo every new app starts from
└─ test-kitchen/        // Evaluation harness for maintainers

Reading order

1. convex/schema.ts → data model in one glance.
2. app/routes/_index.tsx → how the front page loads data.
3. chef-agent/prompts.ts → official system prompt (surprisingly terse).

4. Local Install in Five Copy-Paste Steps

(Windows, macOS, Linux identical.)

Typical gotchas

• White screen → .env.local lacks VITE_CONVEX_URL=placeholder.
• Login loop → Redirect URI set to localhost instead of 127.0.0.1.

5. From Prompt to Personal Logic—A 3-Minute Example

Suppose Chef generated an order-tracking app, but you need three statuses instead of two:

1. Edit convex/schema.ts:
   status: v.union(v.literal("pending"),v.literal("shipped"),v.literal("received"))
2. Add mutation_shipOrder in convex/orders.ts:
   db.patch(id,{status:"shipped",shippedAt:Date.now()})
3. Update the drop-down in app/components/OrderCard.tsx.

That’s it—live updates propagate automatically because useQuery subscribes to the reactive index.

6. Ship to Production in under Three Minutes

Chef keeps two permanent branches:

• staging → chef-staging.convex.dev
• release → chef.convex.dev

Your own apps deploy to Vercel:

1. Push the repo to GitHub.
2. Import in Vercel; build command pnpm run build.
3. Add env vars:

   • CONVEX_URL (copy from dashboard)
   • Model API keys (any one of Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, xAI)
4. Deploy → live URL in ~30 s.

Rollback

• Code bug: click Rollback in Vercel.
• DB schema issue: npx convex migrate to revert.

7. Login & Teams—How the Auth Puzzle Fits

Chef uses WorkOS for social sign-in (Google, GitHub, Microsoft).

Key points:

• Logging in only gets you into Chef.
• Creating an app asks you to pick a Convex team.
• Each app spawns its own Convex project → billing & data stay isolated.

Switch teams locally by swapping the OAuth client/secret in .env.local; no data is lost.

8. Picking a Model—Four Providers, Ten-Second Swap

Settings panel accepts any of:

Keys stay in the browser; Chef sends them only to the provider you chose. Switching models does not require regenerating projects.

9. Debugging Cheat-Sheet

Built-in globals in the browser console:

10. Error Decoder

11. When Not to Use Chef

• You self-host everything (Kubernetes, private cloud). Chef expects Convex Cloud.
• You already run large micro-services in Java/Go. Merging a generated monolith is extra work.
• You work fully offline (air-gapped). Chef needs Convex control-plane access.

For everything else—school projects, SaaS prototypes, internal tools—Chef cuts days into hours.

12. Taking It Further—From “It Runs” to “It Sells”

1. Tests
   Fork test-kitchen/, write user-path assertions, run before each prompt tweak.

2. Monitoring
   Convex already pipes errors to Sentry; add SENTRY_DSN to .env for front-end crashes.

3. Billing
   Add Stripe webhook in convex/functions/stripe.ts, use Convex scheduler to create monthly invoices—about 10 lines of code.

13. FAQ (Conversation Style)

Q: Do I own the generated code?
A: Yes, MIT license. Push it to a private repo, sell it, modify—no restrictions.

Q: Can I eject from Convex later?
A: You can, but you’ll rewrite queries/auth/files. Better to think of Convex as your Postgres + Redis + Cron + WebSocket cluster.

Q: Is my data safe on Convex Cloud?
A: Convex encrypts at rest, offers daily backups, and is SOC 2 Type II audited—see their security page.

Q: What if the AI produces broken code?
A: Hit Regenerate, or edit manually and reload; hot-reload keeps your database, so fixes are instant.

Q: How big can one app grow?
A: Convex scales to 10 k writes/s and PB-level storage; Chef’s template is used in production by multiple YC startups.

14. Key Takeaways (TL;DR)

• Chef = AI scaffolder + Convex backend + Vercel deploy.
• Describe features, get database, auth, file, real-time, cron in one repo.
• Local dev is free; production cost = Vercel + Convex metered usage.
• Generated code is plain TypeScript—no lock-in, fully editable.
• Ten-minute install, three-minute deploy, rolling rollback ready.

Give Chef one afternoon, and you’ll watch a sentence of plain English turn into a URL you can text to your first user—no backend degree required.