App generation - quick start and prompting guide

[Robert Ninness]

App generation is an AI Agent who helps developers bring their app ideas to life through a requirements gathering conversation. This quick start and prompting guide, will walk you through how to activate App generation, understand its behaviours and how to get the best out of its abilities.

Install Now Assist for Creator

To install and activate the App Generation skill, see the installation instructions in the docs site (servicenow.com/docs).

1. Install/upgrade Now Assist for Creator parent application.

• App Generation will be installed as a dependency.

1. Activate the skill in Now Assist Admin.

• Find the App Generation skill under the Creator list of skills.
• (Optional) Choose the LLM.
  • Under Now Assist Admin > Settings > Manage LLMs scroll to App Generation and choose a Provider.

Now that the App Generation skill is activated, developers will need access to ServiceNow Studio and the "now.assist.creator" and "now_assist_panel_user"roles. The "Create an app" and "Update an app" conversation topics will be available in the Now Assist Panel.

A conversation with Now Assist

The App generation agent is fairly strict, you won't be able to engage it in philosophical questions of Life, the Universe and Everything. The prompt layers try to prevent general use and they will redirect off topic questions back to their main purpose: creating or updating a ServiceNow app.

That being said, if you get stuck or are unsure about how to proceed, try asking Now Assist what to do next. For instance, if I'm new to app development, I can ask them about the kinds of information they require and if any particular format is preferred.

🧑‍💻 I'm new to creating applications, is there a particular format I could use to help me write out my requirements?

Spoiler

✨ You can start by describing the purpose of your application, the users who will interact with it, and the data you need to track. For example, what entities (like projects, tasks, or records) should the app manage, and what fields should each entity include? Let me know how you'd like to begin.

Creating an app

When you select the Create an app topic a conversation with Now Assist will typically follow this conversational pattern.

What application features can App generation create?

Tables

• name
• label
• extends

Fields

• name
• label
• mandatory
• type (additional properties if applicable)
  • choices
  • reference
  • length

ACLs

• Description
• Operation
• Role
• Role description
•  

Record Producer

• Name
• Short description
• destination table
• List of questions
  • label
  • type
  • mapped field
  • mandatory

Chainable skills

Once the initial state of the application has been saved e.g. tables and fields, additional options for creating flows and UIs can be accessed. App generation will help gather requirements about automation and generate a prompt for use in Flow generation. A preview will show the generated flow where changes can be requested and saved.

Experience generation can also be invoked in the same way, ServiceNow Studio displaying a UI preview with the opportunity to regenerate and make changes before saving.

The prompt context

The App Generation agent is designed to help you build ServiceNow applications through a guided, rules-based conversation. It acts as a digital product manager, asking questions, capturing your requirements, and assembling the necessary components like tables, roles, workflows, and user interfaces. The agent follows a strict framework to ensure that what it builds is secure, consistent, and aligned with platform standards. While it can’t do everything (yet), it’s highly effective at turning your ideas into structured, ready-to-deploy applications using a focused set of tools.

 

Prompting tips for application generation

Application generation is a conversational AI experience. It differs from the other AI skills in Now Assist for Creator. Playbook generation, for example, is a series of prompt layers that process a single user prompt, there is no opportunity to revise, and the AI is not interacting with the user, rather just delivering an output.

Application generation is interactive, and more akin to messaging colleagues on teams or slack. Treat your responses as such, while you don't have to be strictly polite, keep structure conversational and try to imprint how you feel about suggestions in the tone of your messages. Be as verbose as you see necessary, the more context Now Assist is given the better its decisions will be.

Some prompt variations to try

Reference an existing knowledge domain

Use phrases like: "based on your knowledge of" and "this app helps organisations comply with . . " to provide context to Now Assist to better understand the scope and potential users of the application. 

Examples:

• I'm creating an application to help organisations comply with GDPR requirements, specifically recording legal justifications for recording data
• I'd like help creating an application to review our compliance with ASIC RG 209 Responsible lending conduct
• Based on you knowledge of warranty claims processes, help me create an app for customers to submit and agents to process warranty claims

 

Ask for examples

If you're having trouble thinking of answers to Now Assist, throw the question back to it and ask it to recommend something. 

Examples:

• Based on your knowledge of warranty claims processes, suggest the most common information collected.
• Who would be the primary user personas for an application like this?

This technique can also be great for validating your answers. After giving Now Assist a list of information to collect, ask Now Assist if it has any other recommendations.

Try it:

• Is there any other data you think I should track that we haven't discussed yet?

Reviewing an application spec

Now Assist can be quite focussed on creating the application, so it may move on to next steps before you are ready. Don't be afraid to ask it to go back and spend more time listening to your requirements.

If Now Assist has generated an application spec for you, you can continue your conversation by clicking "Make changes".

Try it:

• Can you list out the data fields and their details one by one so I can suggest changes?
• What are the field types I can pick from for this data field?

Additional Resources

App Generation documentation (servicenow.com/docs)

Now Assist for App Generation in ServiceNow Studio | Overview

Now Assist App Generation w/Ronen Aseo and David Hong - ServiceNow Creator Toolbox

Share your prompt tips below

If you've found other neat ways to communicate with Now Assist to achieve a specific goal, let us know in the comments.

[SylvainHauserN2]

Excellent guide!