Prompt Builder
Last updated 27/07/2026
Overview
The Prompt Builder is a guided assistant within V that helps you create clear, structured application requirements. It is designed to make it easier to describe your application idea, even if you are unsure how to write an effective prompt.
By guiding you through a series of questions, the Prompt Builder creates an optimized prompt for V, helping to improve the accuracy, consistency, and quality of generated applications.
When to Use the Prompt Builder
Use the Prompt Builder when:
- You are unsure where to start
- You need help describing your application requirements
- You want to create a more detailed specification for V
- You want to reduce the amount of refinement required after generation
You can still enter prompts manually if you prefer.
Creating an Application
You will first need to create your application and drill down from the record to open V.
Accessing the Prompt Builder
Open V first through your profile menu.
The Prompt Builder can be accessed at any time by clicking the Help icon located in V's toolbar.
When selected, the Prompt Builder launches a guided workflow that assists you in defining your application requirements through a series of structured questions.
Step 1 - What's the app for?
The first page of the Prompt Builder is where you describe the purpose of the application you want V to build. This is your opportunity to explain your business, the problem you are trying to solve, and the features you expect the application to provide. The description does not need to be highly technical, instead, write as though you are explaining your business requirements to a colleague.
The more context you provide, the better V can understand your requirements and generate an application that closely matches your needs. Rather than simply describing the type of business, explain how the business operates, who uses the system, what information needs to be managed, and the processes the application should support. Including details about workflows, records, scheduling, reporting, communication, or any other important business activities gives V a much stronger understanding of the solution you are looking to create.
For example, the following prompt provides a clear description of both the business and the functionality required:
Providing a detailed description like this allows V with the generated prompt to identify the entities, relationships and workflows required for the application before it begins generating the database, forms, dashboards, reports, and other components. Although the generated application can always be refined later, spending a little extra time describing your business and its requirements will generally produce a more accurate first version and reduces the amount of follow-up work required.
Once you have completed your description, click the Next button.
Step 2 - Who Uses the App?
After describing what your application is for, the next stage of the Prompt Builder defines who will be using the application. This information helps V understand the different types of users that will interact with the system so it can generate the appropriate roles, permissions, menus, forms, and workflows.
For the Commercial Property Maintenance example, the application will be used by several different people, each with their own responsibilities. Property managers need to submit maintenance requests, schedule recurring services, monitor progress of jobs and review completed work. Service technicians require access to their assigned work orders, the ability to update job progress, upload photos and communicate with the property manager while work is being completed. Administrative staff oversee the operation of the application, manage users, configure system settings and ensure work orders are processed correctly.
The Prompt Builder provides a list of common roles that can be selected from the dropdown list. If your application requires more specialized roles, you can simply type your own custom role names instead of selecting from the predefined list. As you add the roles, you will see them appear at the top of the Prompt Builder.
For this application, the most appropriate roles would be Admin and Manager from the defined list, with custom roles such as Property Manager and Service Technician added to accurately represent the people who use the system. These role names give V additional context, allowing it to generate an application that better reflects the day-to-day workflow of a commercial property maintenance business.
Choosing meaningful role names is important becasue V uses them throughout the generated application. The selected roles influence security permissions, navigation menus, dashboards and the type of actions each user can perfor, resulting in an application that more closely matches your business processes from the very beginning.
Once you have completed your roles, click the Next button.
Step 3 - What does each role do?
The third page of the Prompt Builder allows you to describe the responsibilites of each role that was defined on the previous page. V uses this infomation to understand how each type of user interacts with the application, what information they need to see, and what actions they are allowed to perform. This helps V generate role-based navigation, dashboards, forms, and permissions that closely match your business processes.
Each role that you selected or created on the Who uses the app? page is listed individually. For each one, enter a brief description of the screens they should have access to, the tasks they perform, and the information they can view and update. A sentence or two is usually all that is required. Focus on the user's primary responsibilities rather than trying to describe every possible feature, as V will use these descriptions to build an appropriate starting point for the application.
For the commercial property maintanance example, the roles could be described as follows:
Admin - Manages the entire application, including users, system settings, and security. Has access to all maintenance requests, work orders, reports, and configuration screens.
Manager - Overseas daily operations by assigning work orders, scheduling recurring services, monitoring job progress and reviewing costs and service history. Has access to operational dashboards, reports and all maintenance records.
Property Manager - Submits maintenance requests, schedules recurring services, uploads photos and monitors the progress of work orders. Can view the status, history and costs of jobs for the properties they manage.
Service Technician - Views assigned work orders, updates job progress, records completed work, uploads photos and communicates with property managers. Has access only to the jobs assigned to them and the information required to complete those tasks.
These descriptions do not need to be exhaustive. Their purpose is to give V enough context to understand how each role should interact with the application so it can generate an initial set of screens, permissions and workflows that align with your business requirements.
Once you have completed describing your roles, click the Next button.
Step 4 - How should the app look?
The How should your app look? page lets you define the overall appearance of your application before V generates it. While this doesn't affect the application's functionality, it helps create a user interface that matches the style and feel you want from the very beginning.
The first option is the mood, which controls the application's overall visual theme. You can choose from Basic, Modern, Minimal, Bold, Playful, or Elegant. A preview of the color is displayed next to each option, giving you an indication of how the application will look once it is generated. These themes provide a quick way to establish the visual identity of your application, and they can be changed later if your preferences evolve.
The second option is the Menu Layout, which determines how users navigate through the application. Three layouts are available, Boston, New York, and Seattle. Each layout includes a preview showing where the navigation menu, record lists, and forms will appear, making it easy to compare the different interfaces before making a selection. Simply select the layout you prefer, and it will become the default interface for your application.
The Boston layout provides a traditional navigation experience with a side menu, making it well suited to business applications with a large number of menus and features. New York places primary navigation across the top of the application, providing a clean and familiar interface that works well for a broad range of applications. Seattle offers a more spatial layout, presenting record lists and forms in a way that maximizes the available screen space and is ideal for users who spend most of their time working with data.
Once you have completed designing your application, click the Next button.
Step 5 - Extras
The Extras page gives you the opportunity to include additional functionality and guidance that will help V produce a more complete first version of your application. These options supplement the information you have already provided about your business, users, and application design.
The first option, Include some sample data? Instructs V to populate the generated application with realistic example records. Enabling this option makes it easier to explore the application with realistic example records, making it much easier to explore the application after it has been generated, as forms, dashboards, reports, and lists will already contain representative data instead of being empty. This is particularly useful when evaluating workflows or demonstrating the application to others.
The second option, Include help text? Instructs V to generate helpful descriptions throughout the application, including form fields, forms, dashboards, and other user interface elements. Tooltips are displayed when users hover over fields, while additional guidance is available through the Help button in the toolbar. This provides users with contextual assistance, improves usability, helps them understand application features, and reduces the need for additional training.
Below these options is a free-text field where you can describe any additional requirements that have not been covered elsewhere in the Prompt Builder. This is an ideal place to specify business rules, integrations, notifications or other functionality that you would like V to include in the initial application.
For the commercial property maintenance application, you could enter something similar to the following:
Adding these extra requirements gives V additional context when generating your application and often results in a more complete first build. While any of these features can be added or refined later, including them during the initial generation helps V produce an application that more closely reflects your business requirements from the outset.
Step 6 - Generate Application
Once you have completed all pages of the Prompt Builder, the final step is to generate your application. When you click Generate, all of the information you have provided throughout the Prompt Builder is combined into a structured prompt and sent directly to V, Five's AI assistant.
V uses the information you entered about your business, users, roles, application design preferences and additional requirements to understand what you want to build. It then begins generating the application by creating the required database structure, screens, forms, workflows, user roles and other components based on your instructions.
The more detailed and specific the information provided in the Prompt Builder, the better V can understand your requirements and create an application that matches your business processes. Once the initial build is complete, you can continue working with V to make changes, add functionality, customize the application and extend it further as your requirements evolve.
The Prompt Builder provides a simple way to describe an application without needing to start from a blank project. It guides you through the key decisions V needs to create an initial working application, allowing you to move from an idea to a functional application quickly.