I finally sat down to try ServiceNow Lux this weekend. If you haven't come across it yet,
Lux is the new UI framework that arrived with the Brazil release, due to go GA later this quarter. What got my attention is that it's built on Lit and Tailwind instead of the AngularJS and Bootstrap 3 stack we've been living with in Service Portal for years. The idea is one shell for everything: navigation, home, search and notifications in one place, with your apps and workspaces loading inside it. ServiceNow already runs Super Intelligence Control Tower and the EmployeeWorks Web App on it.
Whatever I learn here is useful outside ServiceNow too. By the end of the afternoon, I had a working Open Incidents board running on my PDI. This is a write-up of how that went, mostly so I remember it, and partly in case it saves someone else an hour.
Where do you even start?
There isn't a proper learning path for Lux yet. So I did the obvious thing and messaged someone who'd know: Maria Gabriela Waechter, who demoed Lux on the Brazil Developer Passport stream. Her advice was refreshingly short. Watch the Developer Passport session, then just try to build something. That was the right call. The stream explains what Lux is and shows the whole plan-mode-to-code-mode flow live. Watch it once, and you know enough to start.
Setting up (three fails out of three)
There are two ways to build with Lux: Lux Lab, a more integrated environment that ServiceNow recommends if you're coming from Service Portal, and Lux Lab for VS Code. I went with the VS Code extension.
I installed Lux Lab for VS Code from the Marketplace, opened it, and was greeted by an environment check with three failures. No Node, no pnpm, no now-sdk. Not the start I was hoping for, but at least it told me exactly what it wanted: Node 24+, pnpm 10+ and now-sdk 4.12.1+.
On my Mac, the fix was installing the Node LTS from nodejs.org, then:
sudo npm install -g pnpm@10 @servicenow/sdk
node -v && pnpm -v && now-sdk --version
Wait, why does it want my GitHub login?
Next surprise: before I could type a single prompt, Lux Lab asked me to sign in with Google, GitHub, or another provider. It turns out Lux Lab is bring-your-own-LLM. ServiceNow supplies the framework and the Lux know-how, and you supply the model. I picked GitHub, so it runs on my Copilot plan.
That sent me down a small rabbit hole about cost. Copilot now bills in AI credits (a cent each), and plan mode and code mode both use them. You can keep an eye on it from the Copilot icon in the VS Code status bar. If you're doing this for work, use whatever AI account your company has approved rather than your personal one. On the ServiceNow side, the base Lux framework is free with the platform, and the AI features on top depend on your SKU.
Picking something to build
I connected my PDI. Lux needs Zurich Patch 12+ or Australia Patch 5+, and ServiceNow is clear that nothing should go to production before GA, so a PDI is the perfect sandbox. Then came the harder question of what to actually build.
I wanted something small that used the demo data already on my PDI. An incident board fit. This is the prompt I gave plan mode:
Build a single-page "Open Incidents" board for service desk agents. At the top, show count cards for open incidents by priority (P1–P4). Below that, show a list of open incidents with number, short description, priority, state, assigned to and updated time, sorted by priority then most recent. Add a filter toggle for "Assigned to me" vs "All". Clicking an incident opens a side panel with its details and a box to add a work note. Keep the design clean and accessible.
Plan mode doesn't write code straight away. It shows you what it intends to build, and you approve it or send it back. I liked this more than I expected. It's a natural point to cut scope before you spend credits, and it's the part I'd happily show a business stakeholder. Once I approved it, code mode scaffolded the app, built it, and started a local preview.
That's it running locally at localhost/aiux/open-incidents-board/incidents. Along the top are P1 to P4 count cards. Below is a queue sorted by priority and then by last update, with an All / Assigned to me toggle, and clicking a row opens the full details on the right. It isn't perfect. Look closely, and the header says 40 open incidents while the cards only add up to 31. My guess is the other nine are P5s or have no priority set, so they count in the total but don't get a card. It's a small thing, but a good reminder that the AI builds fast and you still have to check its maths.
Deploying
I haven't deployed it yet, so that's my next step. There are two ways to do it: from Script Runner in the Lux Lab sidebar (build, then deploy), or from a terminal in the project folder:
npx now-sdk auth --add https://yourinstance.service-now.com --type basic
pnpm run build
pnpm run deployMake sure it's pnpm run deploy and not pnpm deploy. The second one is a completely different pnpm command. Once it's deployed, Lux apps live under /aiux/ on the instance rather than /now/.
So, is it worth trying?
Yes, with the obvious caveat that it's still pre-GA. Most of my time went on setup rather than on Lux itself, and once the tooling was sorted, the building part was quick. Plan mode is the bit I keep thinking about. Agreeing on what we're building before any code exists feels like how this should always have worked.
And if you've invested heavily in Workspaces or Service Portal, relax. Nothing is being deprecated. UI Builder still manages configurable workspaces, Workspaces and Service Portal keep working, and requester portals may move to Lux, but not before early 2027.
If I were starting again, I'd watch the Developer Passport stream first, decide which AI account I'm using before I begin, keep the first build tiny, and double-check every number on whatever it produces.
What's next for me
Next, I'm going to try an approver portal, since that's what ServiceNow used in their own demo. In a couple of weeks, I'll be joining Dr Atul G. Grover on his podcast to talk about Lux: what it is, where it fits alongside Workspaces and Service Portal, and what SN professionals should pick up before GA.
If you're playing with Lux too, I'd love to see what you're building. And thanks again to Maria for pointing me in the right direction.
