What is Rough?

Rough lets your users build their own features inside your app. They describe what they want in a chat, and Rough uses AI to build it for them. They can try it out, ask for changes, and publish it when they're happy with it. They don't need to write any code.

You add Rough to your app using our SDK. You choose where these features appear and which data and actions they can use.

Why we're building it

If you work on a software product, you probably get requests for things that would be useful to one customer but aren't a priority for everyone else. Someone needs a report with a particular set of columns, or a different way to view their team's work. You'd like to help, but there's only so much time.

We want to make it possible for those customers to build what they need, without having to wait for you to build it for them. And because they're building inside your app, they can work with the data that's already there rather than exporting it to a spreadsheet or setting up another tool.

Your own team can use Rough too. For example, someone in customer success could build a report for a customer while working through their request.

How it works in your app

You start by adding a Surface, which is a place where Rough Features can appear. This could be part of a dashboard or a separate page for custom features.

You then give that Surface capabilities. These are the things a Feature can do with your app, such as reading a list of projects or updating a task. Rough doesn't get access to your whole app automatically; you need to provide the capabilities you want to support. Your backend still needs to check the user's permissions, just as it would for any other action in your app.

Your users open the Feature Builder from a button in your app and describe what they'd like to build. Once they publish a Feature, it appears on the page. They can come back and edit it later if they need something different.

Give it a try

The easiest way to see how this feels is to try a demo. You can build a Feature without setting anything up first.

When you're ready to add Rough to your own app, follow the getting started guide, or give your AI coding agent the prompt on our overview page.

For more detail, see what a Rough Feature can do and how security works.