Primitive

Primitive is a backend platform designed to take you from idea to production app as fast as possible — and to work hand-in-hand with AI coding tools along the way. Not demo apps or toys: real applications with authentication, synced data, file storage, access control, LLM-powered automation, and analytics.

You focus on your UI and business logic. Primitive provides everything behind it — no APIs to build, no servers to manage.

From Idea to Production

A Primitive app's whole lifecycle fits in a handful of commands:

1. Scaffold — one command gives you a running app, web or iOS, with sign-in, synced data, and dev tools already wired up.
2. Add your data — local-first documents with real-time sync, sharing, and access control built in, and no backend code to write; server-side databases for shared records, read and written from your server functions.
3. Add backend behavior — server functions, managed prompts, and API integrations, all configured as code that lives in your repo.
4. Ship — the web template deploys with one command; the iOS template ships through TestFlight and the App Store.

The Quick Start walks through it, or see Primitive in action in the Example Apps.

Why Primitive?

Real-time, collaborative data is the default, not an add-on. Documents are local-first: your app reads and writes a local store for instant interactions, and changes sync automatically across devices and collaborators with conflict-free merging. Alongside them, server-side databases give you fine-grained access control and server-enforced rules. Most platforms make you choose — or bolt sync on later. Primitive gives you both, designed to work together.

One backend, every platform. Web and iOS are first-class citizens with matching client libraries, matching templates, and one shared data schema. Concepts carry over directly — learn documents, databases, and sharing once, then build for whichever platform your users are on.

Built for AI-assisted development. Tools like Claude and Cursor excel at UI and business logic but struggle with infrastructure plumbing. Primitive's entire backend is operated through the CLI as version-controlled configuration in your repo — exactly the interface coding agents are good at. Agent guides ship with every template, the CLI serves reference docs to your assistant on demand, and a Claude Code skill teaches it platform best practices. Your agent can configure auth, write server functions, and wire up integrations without you touching a dashboard.

One platform, not ten services. Auth, data sync, file storage, server-side functions, integrations, analytics — integrated, consistent, and configured in one place. No dashboard hopping, no credential juggling, no glue code between providers. Every service is built for real workloads: real-time collaboration, fine-grained access control, server-side automation.

What Primitive Provides

Authentication

Multiple sign-in methods out of the box — Google OAuth, passwordless email sign-in (one email carrying a code and, where your app supports it, a link), and Passkeys (biometric sign-in). Token management, session handling, and refresh are all handled for you.

Data Storage

Primitive offers two complementary storage systems:

• Documents — Local-first, real-time collaborative data. Your app reads and writes a local database on the device; changes sync automatically across devices and users. Great for user-owned data and real-time collaboration.

• Databases — Server-side structured storage. Read and write records from a server function, with fine-grained access control on the function itself. Great for shared records, cross-user data, admin-controlled content, and server-enforced business rules.

Most apps use one or both — see Choosing Your Data Model for guidance.

Users and Groups

Every user gets a built-in profile (name, email, avatar) managed by the platform. Groups let you organize users into teams, roles, or any relationship, and expression-based access rules build on them: who may call each of your server functions, and who may manage groups, collections, blob buckets, database types, and locks.

Server Functions

Server-side logic you write in TypeScript and keep in your repo. Call a function from your app and get its result back, or start it as a task that runs to completion in the background; an outside service's webhook or a schedule can fire one too. A function reads and writes your databases, runs your prompts, calls your integrations, and pushes live updates to connected users — and it decides who may call it.

Managed Prompts

Version-controlled LLM prompt templates with built-in testing. Define prompt configurations, test them against expected outputs, and run them from your server functions.

Integrations

Call external APIs from your server functions. Primitive stores your API keys server-side and adds them to each request, so credentials never ship in your app.

Blob Storage

Upload, download, and manage files (images, PDFs, attachments). Document-scoped blobs inherit document permissions; general-purpose blob buckets add TTL tiers, signed URLs, and expression-based access rules for storage that lives outside a specific document.

Sharing and Access

Share documents with other users — by user ID, by email (resolves at signup), or with an entire group. Document access requests let users with a link ask for access Google-Docs-style. Member invitations with quotas let regular members bring teammates in without admin involvement.

Analytics

Automatic lifecycle event tracking (daily active users, session activity, feature usage) plus custom event logging. Read metrics back from the Admin Console, the CLI, or a server function.

How It Fits Together

Your app runs on the user's device — in the browser or on an iPhone — and talks to the platform through a client library that exposes the same features in JavaScript (any framework) and Swift. Optional starter templates for web (Vue) and iOS (SwiftUI) wrap the client with login UI, data-binding helpers, and dev tooling — the fastest start, covered in the Quick Start.

The Primitive Platform itself is a managed service. You operate your app's backend through the CLI — as version-controlled configuration that lives in your repo, and the interface AI coding agents use — or interactively through the web Admin Console. You never touch the underlying infrastructure.

Next Steps

• Quick Start — A running app, web or iOS, in minutes
• Choosing Your Data Model — Decide between documents, databases, or both
• Working with Documents — Local-first collaborative data
• Working with Databases — Server-side structured storage