Docs

App Builder

What this screen is for

App Builder designs containerised applications visually. You drag components onto a canvas, connect them, configure each one, and publish the result as a versioned application your team can use.

It is for composing multi-container architectures — a frontend, an API, a database, a cache — without hand-writing the compose and deployment files first.

Before you start

To do this You need
Open App Builder the App Builder access permission

Nothing else has to exist first: you can design an application before any cluster or repository is connected. What you cannot do is deploy it — that needs the rest of Settings in place.

Opening it

  1. Build › App Builder in the sidebar.

Direct URL: /app-builder

It opens with an empty canvas, the Component Palette on the left, and the App Header ready for a name.

The interface

📸 Screenshot Placeholder: App Builder with a three-component application on the canvas. Mark: (1) the App Header, (2) the tab bar, (3) the Component Palette, (4) the Flow Canvas, (5) a component node.

# Area What it does Covered in
1 App Header Name, status badge, version, and the save/publish actions Interface Overview
2 Tab bar App Designer · Setup Wizard · Applications Interface Overview
3 Component Palette The library of draggable components Component Palette
4 Flow Canvas Where the architecture is assembled Flow Canvas
5 Config modal One component’s settings Component Configuration

What App Builder gives you

  • Visual composition — design architectures on a flow canvas rather than in YAML
  • A component library — frontend, backend, database, infrastructure, brokers, DevOps, secrets, monitoring, streaming
  • Deep configuration — images, environment variables, volumes, networks, sidecars
  • Versioning — save drafts, publish versions, manage the lifecycle
  • Notifications — the team is told when a new version is published

Walkthroughs

The work splits across pages, in the order you meet them:

  1. Interface Overview — the layout and the header actions
  2. Component Palette — finding and creating components
  3. Flow Canvas — placing and connecting them
  4. Component Configuration — configuring one
  5. Setup Wizard — the guided path
  6. Application Management — drafts, versions, publishing
  7. Notifications — what the team sees

Reference material sits alongside: Best Practices, Troubleshooting, Keyboard Shortcuts and the Glossary.

Scenario

Designing a three-tier application from nothing.

  1. Build › App Builder. Name it in the App Header first — an unnamed draft is hard to find again, and the name propagates to what you publish.
  2. From the palette, drag a frontend, a backend and a database onto the canvas.
  3. Connect frontend → backend → database. Connections are not decoration: they drive the environment variables that get generated between components.
  4. Open each node and configure it — see Component Configuration. Set the image and the ports before anything else; the rest has workable defaults.
  5. Save as draft while you are still deciding. Draft is the honest state for something incomplete, and publishing notifies your team.
  6. When it is right, publish. That creates a version and tells the team — see Notifications.
  7. Manage what you have built from Application Management.

The step people skip is 3. A canvas of unconnected nodes looks finished and generates none of the wiring between them.

When it doesn’t work

Symptom Cause How to check Fix
App Builder is not in the Build submenu Missing the App Builder access permission Access Explorer Ask for a role granting it
The publish button is disabled The application is incomplete, or a save is in progress The status badge and button state Finish the required fields; wait for the save
A component has no generated environment variables It is not connected to anything The canvas edges Connect it — see Flow Canvas
A custom component is missing from the palette It was created by someone else and deleted, or the filter is set The category tabs and search box Click All to reset the filter
Changes vanished They were never saved The status badge Save the draft before leaving

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