Apps overview

An app brings the resources for a use case into one deployable project. It can combine a frontend, an API, a database, agents, and workflows. A frontend is optional. Studio provides hosting, authentication, and access control.

Use the Mistral CLI to create the project, develop locally, and deploy it. Capabilities add the components your app needs.

Use an app when people need an interface to your agents or workflows, or when several components need to be deployed together. For example, a claims app can let a user submit a claim, start a workflow, and review its result in the same interface.

A standalone workflow is a better fit for a background process with no dedicated interface. A plugin extends a Vibe session with tools, skills, or instructions rather than deploying an application. For a comparison, see Choose what to build.

After you install the Mistral CLI, sign in, create an app from the app preset, and start it locally:

mistral login
mistral init my-app --preset app
cd my-app
mistral dev

mistral login
mistral init my-app --preset app
cd my-app
mistral dev

The app preset creates a web frontend, a Python API, a Postgres database, and a workflow worker. Before you run mistral dev, start Docker for the database and set MISTRAL_API_KEY in the generated .env file. mistral dev prints the local URL to open.

When the app works locally, push it to a GitHub repository, then deploy it:

mistral deploy

mistral deploy

For the complete setup, follow the Quickstart. To make a deployed app available in Vibe, see Publish to Vibe.

Start with a preset or select capabilities interactively. You can add or remove components later without recreating the app. For details, see Available capabilities and Selecting capabilities.

• Quickstart: create, run, and deploy your first app.
• Local development: configure API access and inspect logs.
• Deploy: deploy a pushed commit to Studio.
• Publish to Vibe: make a deployed app available to users.