# Describing your app

> How to write a first message that gets you a useful first version.

The opening description does most of the work. You do not need technical vocabulary. You need to be specific about people, tasks and data.

## Start with the job to be done

One sentence about who needs what:

- "A tool for our support team to log customer complaints and see who is handling them."
- "A site where members can book a desk for the day and see which desks are taken."

If you cannot say it in one sentence yet, the first version is probably trying to do too much.

## Name the people

Most apps have two or three kinds of user. Name them and say what each can do:

- Visitors can browse and submit an enquiry, but not see anything else.
- Members can manage their own bookings.
- Staff can see everything and change any booking.

Those roles decide what each person sees, so getting them right early saves a rebuild later. See [Roles and permissions](/collaborate/roles-and-permissions).

## List the things you keep track of

Say what a record looks like in plain language. "A client has a name, an email, a phone number and a list of sessions" is enough for the builder to create the right shape. If you already have a spreadsheet, describe its columns or paste a screenshot of the header row.

## Describe screens in the order people use them

"First they see a list of open jobs. Clicking one opens the detail page with notes and a status dropdown. There is a button to create a new job from the list." That is a whole app in three sentences.

## Say what should happen when things go wrong

The details that make software feel finished are usually the unhappy paths:

- What happens when a form is submitted twice?
- Can a booking be cancelled, and does the slot become available again?
- What should an empty list say?
- Who gets an email when something changes?

You do not have to cover all of them up front. Just know that they are part of the work, not polish.

## A description that works

```
A membership site for a small gym.
Members sign in and see this week's classes, book a place,
and cancel up to two hours before the start.
Staff see each class with a list of who booked,
can add a member manually, and can cancel a class (members get an email).
No payments for now.
```

> [!tip] Add "No payments for now" or "Ignore mobile for the first version". Naming what you are deliberately leaving out keeps the first build small and fast.

Next: [Iterating in chat](/build/iterating-in-chat).