# SmartLinks Forge and the SmartLinks platform: what you can build A reference for builders, documentation tools and AI build tools. It covers: - what Forge builds; - the platform it builds on (SmartLinks Cloud and the SDK); - every capability a builder can rely on; - the kinds of solutions people make with it. Current as of November 2026 (SDK `@proveanything/smartlinks` 2.1.x). --- ## 1. The short version **Forge** is an AI builder. You describe what you want, in words or by voice, and an agent builds it as real code (React and TypeScript), previews it live against real data, and publishes it. You change it by talking to it. **SmartLinks Cloud** is the platform everything Forge builds runs on: a managed backend with people, content, records, files, messaging, server logic, AI and hosting already built in. Nothing needs a server, a database or a login system written from scratch. **The SDK** (`@proveanything/smartlinks`) is how code talks to the platform: one typed client for every capability below, in the browser and in server functions. What makes it different from a general website or app builder: - **The backend already exists.** Sign-in, a CRM, a content system, structured records, email/SMS/WhatsApp messaging, loyalty, analytics, AI and integrations are platform services, not things the agent invents per project. - **It understands physical things.** Products, individual items, QR codes, NFC chips and RFID tags are first-class, so a scan or a tap can open exactly the right experience for exactly that item. - **Many surfaces from one app.** The same app can have a public website, a panel inside a customer portal, small cards, an admin dashboard and a mobile staff screen with an RFID reader, all sharing one set of data. - **Real code, owned by you.** Everything is readable, versioned code in a repository, released through channels (test, beta, live) as immutable builds. --- ## 2. What you can build ### 2.1 Websites Server-rendered business websites on their own address or the business's own domain: - **Real pages for search engines and AI.** Every page arrives as finished HTML, so search engines, AI crawlers and link previews read the real content. Sitemaps, robots rules, structured data and share tags come as standard. - **Built from a conversation.** Describe the business, or point Forge at an existing site to copy faithfully. Forge can bring an existing site's content across (pages, posts, FAQs, images, form submissions) from any source. - **Content the owner edits without Forge.** Blog posts, FAQs, team members, galleries and products live in the platform's content system, and the owner edits them in SmartLinks Studio. The site reads them at request time. - **Business features already built:** enquiry forms, newsletter sign-up with consent, FAQs, product listings, members' areas with their own sign-in, bookings and events. - **Media library.** Images, video, audio and documents are stored in the site's own cloud with permanent addresses. Replace a picture once and every page using it updates, with no rebuild. - **Hosting included:** global delivery, an automatic `*.smartlinks.host` address, a chosen name or your own domain with managed certificates, and versioned publishing. Typical sites: a shop's or studio's website, a club or school site with members and volunteers, a restaurant with bookings, a venue with events and tickets, a charity with donations, a product brand's site with its catalogue. ### 2.2 Custom apps inside a site ("sub-apps") When a site needs something with its own information, rules and admin screen, Forge builds it as a **custom app of that site**. Examples: a box league with players, rounds and results; a class timetable with booking rules; a volunteer rota; an event bookings system. - It lives in the site's project, so there's one conversation and one repository, but it's its own app: its own data, admin screen, dashboard cards and releases. - It's installed on the site's cloud only, and the owner runs it from SmartLinks Studio. - The site shows its data through the platform. It never imports the custom app's code, so the site can be redesigned without breaking the app. - "Make it reusable" turns a custom app into a standalone app that other businesses can install. ### 2.3 Apps (installable experiences) Standalone apps, installed by many businesses into their own clouds. One app can ship several surfaces: | Surface | What it is | Typical use | |---|---|---| | **App panel** | The full experience, shown inside a customer portal (as a component) or on its own page | Registration, product information, a competition, a service request | | **Small card** (widget) | A compact card other pages and apps embed, sized small / medium / large with display options | "Your warranty", a live vote count, the next event | | **Public views** | Full-screen standalone pages: display boards, kiosks, TV screens | A live leaderboard, an event board, a museum kiosk | | **Admin dashboard** | The business's admin screen inside SmartLinks Studio | Managing entries, settings, content, reports | | **Dashboard cards** | Cards on the business's Studio home ("3 new enquiries") | At-a-glance status with a link into the app | | **Sidekick screen** (mobile admin) | A staff screen on a phone or a handheld scanner, with NFC, QR, camera and RFID | Stock checks, inspections, field service, ticket scanning | | **Machine-readable content** (executor) | Titles, descriptions and page content served to search engines and AI assistants | Discoverability of the app's content | | **Linkable pages** | Deep-linkable states that portals, menus, sites and AI can open directly | "Open this item's service history" | Apps are released through channels (dev, alpha, beta, stable) as immutable, versioned builds. Each business chooses which version it runs, and major versions are opt-in. ### 2.4 Connectors and integrations - **Connectors** are apps that know one external system: a PIM, a product content network, a shop platform. They're installed and versioned like any app, and they plug into the platform's integration engine and integrations console. - **Integration flows** move data between SmartLinks and other systems: - **outbound** (send a product to an external endpoint) today; **inbound** (fetch and write) is a later increment; - deterministic **field mappings**: AI can help author a mapping, but the running import never calls an AI; - triggered on demand or from platform events (a product changes); scheduled flows are next; - each failed record is retried on its own with backoff. - **Inbound webhooks and APIs.** Server functions can expose controlled HTTP endpoints for other systems to call, and verify the caller. - **Outbound calls.** Server functions call external APIs with **sealed credentials**: secrets are stored write-only and never shipped in app code. - **Imports from anywhere.** For bringing a business across, the agent writes extraction code for any source (an old website, a CMS export, a spreadsheet, an API) and loads posts, records, contacts, files and redirects into the cloud. --- ## 3. What it's used for (by sector) These are patterns, not limits: anything combining people, things, content and logic fits. ### Games, entertainment and engagement Competitions and prize draws (with raffle numbering and "Nth claimer" logic), quizzes, polls and votes (live counts on a display board), tap-to-win and scavenger hunts, fan experiences (gig listings, music players, e-tickets, merchandise), photo memories attached to a physical keepsake, tap-to-donate for charities, loyalty and rewards, and live leaderboards. The building blocks: **interactions** (typed events with outcomes and votes), **realtime** updates, **loyalty** schemes, **segments** and **journeys**, messaging, and display-board views. ### Products and brands (physical to digital) Digital product passports, warranty registration and claims, manuals and how-to guides with AI help, care labels, ingredients, nutrition and allergens, provenance and certifications, spare parts, recipes and cooking guides, product registration and ownership, resale and transfer of ownership, and authenticity checks with secure NFC tags. ### Workforce, warehouse and field operations - **Stock counts** with handheld UHF RFID readers: mass-scan a shelf or a pallet, filter by EPC prefix, and reconcile against expected stock. - **Find a tagged item** with the reader's Geiger-counter mode (stronger signal, faster beeps). - **Goods in and goods out**, container and pallet tracking with nesting (case in carton in pallet in shipment), and lots and batches. - **Inspections and checklists** against a specific item, with results kept on its history. - **Field service:** scan a machine, see its history and open jobs, record the work. - **Ticket and pass scanning** at the door. - **Asset tracking and equipment hire**, and handovers between people with a status and history. - **Tag programmes:** mint NFC tag ranges, send them to a manufacturer, import the chip IDs, and assign them to clients or products. ### Businesses and organisations Websites with bookings (appointments, classes, tours, tables, rooms, equipment), members' areas with levels, event sign-ups, enquiry handling, newsletters, volunteer rotas, customer portals, partner portals, and internal tools. ### Content and AI Knowledge bases and FAQ assistants grounded in the business's own content (RAG), product chat, document reading and data extraction, PDF generation and form filling, translation, image generation and editing, text to speech and podcast-style audio. --- ## 4. Platform capabilities (the technical breakdown) ### 4.1 Interfaces - **Public websites:** server-rendered, edge-delivered, with SEO built in, on their own domains. - **Customer portal:** the mobile experience opened by a scan or tap, with navigation and sign-in. Apps appear inside it as panels. - **Embeddable cards and full-app containers:** components other apps and pages embed. They inherit the host's theme through CSS variables, with no iframes needed. - **Display boards, kiosks and TV screens:** standalone full-screen public views. - **Admin interfaces:** - the app's admin dashboard inside SmartLinks Studio; - dashboard cards on the Studio home; - one Studio assistant that can operate the app on the admin's behalf, with undoable change sets. - **Mobile staff interfaces (Sidekick):** - phone or handheld screens with the device's camera, haptics and sharing; - QR scanning, and NFC read and write (including NTAG 424 DNA secure tags); - UHF RFID on supported Android handhelds: built-in readers, Zebra and TSL; - offline queues for work done without signal. - **Theming:** a versioned semantic theme-token system, so every surface follows the business's brand, including AI-generated themes. - **Internationalisation:** translations and build-time i18n. ### 4.2 People and identity - **Customer sign-in (auth kit):** - email and password, magic links, phone codes, Google and WhatsApp sign-in; - profile management; - a site can have **its own login** (its own users, separate from SmartLinks). - **Operator and admin sign-in:** comes from the host. Admin access is checked by the platform, and apps never build login. Two-step verification with authenticator apps is available. - **Contacts (the CRM):** - one record per person, created when they sign in, register or fill in a form; - custom fields; - searchable, and shared across the business's collections. - **Members:** a member is a contact with a level (gold, junior, pending…). There's no separate membership system to maintain. - **Ownership:** claim an item by NFC tap, serial number or claim code; transfer ownership; share access with others. - **Scoped visibility:** public, owner and admin tiers on data, with personal fields kept in their own boundary. ### 4.3 Content (the CMS) - **App records:** structured content objects (posts, FAQs, team members, events, anything). They're queryable, with statuses and visibility, and can hang off a product, an item or another record. - **Settings and keyed content:** per-collection and per-product configuration, and content documents. - **Headless content for sites:** apps declare their content (FAQ, blog, gallery, content pages) so any site can render it, while the owner keeps editing it in the app's admin. - **Media library (assets):** - images, video, audio, PDFs and fonts, scoped to the business, a product, an item or an app; - permanent addresses that always serve the current file, and versioned files; - resumable large uploads, web-ready video with posters, public upload tokens. - **Templates:** Liquid templates for messages and documents. - **Product content:** product and item fields with declared schemas, variants, batches, facets and tags. ### 4.4 Data and records | Object | For | |---|---| | **Records** | Any app-specific domain entity: registrations, inspections, results, entries, bookings data | | **Cases** | Work moving to a resolution: assignment, priority, status and history (a warranty claim, a service job) | | **Threads** | Conversations, replies, Q&A, tied to a person, product or item | | **Attestations** | Append-only, hash-chained facts (an inspection, a service, a verification), with public, owner and admin tiers and time series | | **Forms** | Platform-managed form definitions, submissions and schema-driven UI | | **Bookings** | Slots, bookings and allocations for any booking app (tickets, classes, appointments, hire), with atomic multi-part bookings and availability | | **Products and items** | Collections, products, variants, batches, lots and individual items (proofs), each with its own data and history | | **Containers** | Hierarchical groupings of items (cases, pallets, shipments) with membership and history | | **Counters and claims** | Atomic numbering with no duplicates, and one-per-person or one-per-tag claims | ### 4.5 Engagement: interactions, journeys and loyalty - **Interactions:** typed events (a scan, a vote, an entry, a registration) with outcomes. They drive analytics, journeys and loyalty. - **Journeys and segments:** react to what people do, and build audiences from real behaviour and contact fields. - **Loyalty:** schemes, earning rules attached to interactions (points are awarded automatically), balances, lifetime points and transactions. - **Analytics:** page views, clicks and QR/NFC scan telemetry, with dashboards. - **Realtime:** apps refresh the moment data changes, and use declared channels for live features (votes, boards, presence). ### 4.6 Communications - **Channels:** email, SMS, WhatsApp, push and wallet passes, or "preferred" (the contact's best channel). - **Transactional sends:** one message to one contact, from app code, a server function or an event. - **Broadcasts:** multi-channel campaigns with preview and test sends. - **Flows:** event-driven messages, such as a booking confirmation, with: - reply-to, cc and bcc; - fixed inboxes ("send enquiries to hello@…"); - attachments: calendar invites, files from the media library, or documents a function generates. - **Consent:** topics, opt-ins and opt-outs, per-subject preferences, unsubscribe handling. - **Templates:** a Liquid template library with personalisation. ### 4.7 Logic: server functions - App-authored server code, `(ctx, event) => result`, run by the platform. There's no server to manage. - **Triggers:** HTTP (public or admin), platform events, schedules (cron), and agent tools. - **Capability-scoped SDK inside functions:** a function can only do what it declares. - **Sealed secrets:** functions declare the secrets they need, and the values never reach the browser. - **Outbound HTTP** to external services, with fixed egress for allow-listing. - **Untrusted code isolation:** third-party apps can run their functions in an isolated runner. - **Release channels:** test and live versions of functions, matching the app's channels. - **Background jobs** and event pipelines for longer work. ### 4.8 AI - **Chat and responses:** a platform AI endpoint, plus an OpenAI-compatible completions API. - **Assistants:** public assistants grounded in the business's own content (RAG over documents and manuals). - **Server-side AI tools:** - web search and page reading, and document reading; - typed data extraction; - image description, generation and editing; - PDF creation and form filling; - translation, and guarded HTTP requests. - **Voice:** speech to text, text to speech, podcast-style audio. - **Agent tools:** apps can expose their own actions to the SmartLinks agent. - **Usage tracing:** per business, with a price book. ### 4.9 Hosting, delivery and operations - **Global delivery** of apps and sites, and server-side rendering at the edge. - **Addresses:** automatic addresses, chosen names, the business's own domains, and managed certificates. - **Releases:** immutable, versioned builds through channels; each business picks its version; data upgrades for major versions. - **Live preview against real data** while building, in every surface: - in the real portal; - as a small card, with the host's size and options; - as a Sidekick screen with simulated hardware; - as an admin dashboard. ### 4.10 Security and privacy - Visibility tiers on every object (public / owner / admin). - Admin writes are always checked server-side. - Sealed, write-only secrets. - Consent tools for messaging. - Per-site sign-in tenants. - Change sets the admin can undo for anything the assistant does. - Irreversible actions (sending, deleting, publishing, spending) wait for an admin's approval. --- ## 5. How Forge builds 1. **Describe it.** Type or speak. Forge proposes a plan in plain words: pages, built-in features, custom apps, and the look. For a site it asks plainly whether the business has products. 2. **It builds in a private build box.** A full development environment with the agent, previewing live against a real business's data. You watch and steer. 3. **Preview everywhere.** Switch between the surfaces (site pages, app panel in the portal or on its own, small card, admin, Sidekick with hardware simulation) and the business you preview as. 4. **Publish.** - A site goes live on its address. - An app is released to a channel; businesses install it, and it shows whether it's installed where you preview. - Failed builds caused by the code are fixed by the agent and retried. 5. **Keep changing it by talking to it.** Every change is versioned, and the code is in your repository. Built-in agent tools include image generation (into the media library for sites), stock photos, web research and page reading, uploads and video processing, data import from any source, cloud configuration, and the full SDK reference. --- ## 6. Pricing model (websites, being introduced) One plan per site, priced like a website builder. Building, hosting and running are included, and **credits** are the one currency: they pay for changes, and for any use beyond the plan's included hosting. | Plan | For | |---|---| | **Try** (free) | Build and preview; choose a plan to go live | | **Starter** | A small business site on its own domain | | **Grow** | Members, bookings, custom apps | | **Pro** | Busy sites and agencies; credits shared across sites | If credits run out, the site keeps running and changes pause until the owner tops up or moves up a plan. Product brands' plans (the Hub and product experiences) are priced separately. --- ## 7. For AI build tools: the rules of the platform If you're generating code against SmartLinks, these are the platform's own rules: - **Never build what the platform has.** No custom login, no external database, no localStorage as the store of record, no AI keys in the browser (AI goes through `SL.ai`), no messaging provider of your own. - **Data:** - a real domain entity is an app **record**; - work to resolve is a **case**; - discussion is a **thread**; - an immutable fact is an **attestation**; - a setting is **app configuration**; - a field on the product or item belongs in **product/proof data**. - **Admin writes pass `admin: true`.** That selects the admin endpoint; it does not make fields private. Use the admin block for private fields. - **Secrets only in server functions,** declared and sealed. - **Media on a site goes in the site's media library, by its permanent address.** An app's own design images live in its code. - **A site never imports another app's code.** It renders the app's content, or opens its linkable pages. - **One build serves every business it's installed on.** Never hard-code a collection ID; read the context. The SDK documentation set covers each area in depth (overview, auth kit, app objects, records pattern, server functions, integrations, connectors, comms, interactions, loyalty, bookings, members, assets, AI and AI tools, widgets, containers, mobile admin, native facade, realtime, websites, headless providers, admin cards, theme, i18n, attestations, forms, lots, container tracking, tag ranges, deep links).