Create Your Own AI App Builder
Build a vibe-coding product on top of Totalum. Embed an AI app builder in your existing SaaS, or launch a standalone builder startup — you own the frontend and the brand.
The Totalum API turns the entire "prompt → production app" pipeline into a service you can build on. Because Totalum handles the hard part — actually building, hosting and deploying real full-stack apps — you only build the experience around it.
#What you can build
#Embed a multitenant AI builder in your SaaS
Drop an AI app builder into your existing product so your customers can generate and deploy apps without leaving your platform. Totalum runs each project on isolated infrastructure, so it's multitenant by design — you add your own user accounts and access control on top.
#Launch a builder startup from scratch
Ship a standalone AI web/app builder — your own Lovable / Bolt / v0 / Replit alternative — fully branded and priced by you. The heavy lifting (agent, sandbox, database, hosting, custom domains, GitHub sync) is provided by the Totalum API; you own the client and the go-to-market.
#What the API gives you
| Your product needs | Totalum provides |
|---|---|
| "Describe an app" → a working app | Launch Project + Run AI Agent, with live progress |
| A preview per customer project | temporalDevelopmentProjectUrl, private, on its own development database |
| One-click publishing | Publishing, custom domains, domains bought in your product |
| Per-customer cost control | Monthly credit caps and feature switches per project, usage per project |
| Organisation | Project groups (one per customer), keys restricted to some projects |
| Events instead of polling | Webhooks: prompt finished, publish ended, limit reached |
| Code ownership for your customers | Source download, GitHub sync, export & import |
| Mobile apps | Android and iOS builds of any project |
Everything is billed to your account in credits; you set your own prices. If the apps your customers build must themselves create apps, see Building on Totalum's API.
#Start from the open-source builder
We maintain a complete, self-hostable reference frontend — a working AI app builder UI on top of the Totalum App Builder API. Clone it, set one environment variable, deploy anywhere Next.js runs, and you have a builder you fully own and can rebrand.
The only required configuration is a single environment variable:
VCAAS_API_KEY=tlm_sk_your_keyVCAAS_API_KEY is the variable name this open-source repo reads — use it exactly as written or the
builder won't start. It holds the same tlm_sk_ key as the TOTALUM_API_KEY variable used elsewhere in
these docs; only the variable name differs.
It ships with the full workspace out of the box: a Chat panel (prompt the agent), Preview, a Code browser (Monaco), a Diff viewer, a Database panel, Logs, Secrets, Versions, Domain and GitHub panels — plus a bundled copy of the full Totalum App Builder API reference. Built with Next.js, React, Tailwind and shadcn/ui, it runs on Vercel, a container, or any VM.
#Architecture & security
All Totalum calls funnel through a single server-only module, so the API key never reaches the browser:
Browser → your Next.js API route (/api/vcaas/*) → Totalum App Builder APIKeep VCAAS_API_KEY server-side only. Your frontend talks to your backend; your backend talks to
the Totalum API. See the security rule in the API overview.