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Rork has three ways to answer a message. It can design the screens first, plan the work first, or build the change straight away. Every path ends in the same place, a working app, but they cost different amounts and give you different moments to change your mind.

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Where the switches are

The composer has a mode menu next to the model picker. It shows the current mode, Build by default. Open it and pick Build, Plan, or Design. The same menu sits on the home screen and inside a project.
The Rork composer with the mode menu open. Three rows: Build, Build and edit your app. Plan, Plan the features and screens before building. Design, Explore the look before building.

The mode menu. Only one mode is on at a time.

The modes are exclusive. Picking one turns the others off.
On the home screen, the Design row belongs to paid plans. Some free accounts start in Design automatically. Free credits cover design, and building your app needs a plan. See Plans & Subscriptions.

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Design mode

Design mode is the cheap way to decide how your app looks. Rork asks a few questions about the style, then draws three or four screens. It writes no code until you press Build on the Review Design card.
A Review Design card in the Rork chat listing three screens, with View Design and Built shown below it

The Review Design card. After the build it keeps View Design and marks itself Built.

Design mode: the full guide

A demo, the questions Rork asks, choosing from four designs, websites, and what happens after Build.

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Plan mode

Plan mode is for the changes that are too big to hand over blind. Rork writes down what it intends to do, and it changes no files until you agree. For a new app, the plan also draws the key screens and a small diagram of how they connect. Pick Plan in the mode menu, then send your message. Rork shows a Review Plan card in chat. View Plan opens the plan, and Build starts the work. Rork can also ask for Plan mode itself when a request looks large. Plan mode has no separate price. A plan message spends build credits like any other message.

Plan mode: the full guide

A demo, three step-by-step tutorials, what a plan contains, and what Plan mode cannot do.

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Building

Building is the default. Neither switch is on, you describe the change, and Rork edits the code. While it works, the chat shows what it does: Explored 7 files, Made 9 actions, Running checks, Building app. Each finished message lists the files it touched, and a preview of the result. Rork stops and asks when a step needs you: a key it does not have, a question with several sensible answers, a design decision it cannot guess. Those arrive as cards in the chat with buttons, not as walls of text.

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Choose the AI model

The composer has a model picker. It reads Auto by default.
The Rork model menu open, with Auto selected and a list of named models below it

The model menu. Auto is the default, and models above your plan carry a Pro or Max badge.

Auto picks the model and the reasoning effort for each message, so most people never open this menu. Pick a model by hand when you want a specific one. Models above your plan carry a Pro or Max badge, and choosing one opens the plan picker. See the full list in Plans & Subscriptions.

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Talk instead of typing

The microphone button records your voice and writes the text into the composer. Read it, edit it, then send it. Rork does not send a recording straight to the agent, so a wrong word costs you nothing.

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Attach what you already have

Use + → Upload image or drop a file onto the chat. Rork reads screenshots, photos, PDFs, video, audio, and 3D models. A screenshot is the fastest way to describe a design. Take a picture of a Figma frame, or of an app you like, and say what you want from it. Free accounts attach files up to 10MB. Paid plans go up to 5GB.

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Queue the next message

You do not have to wait for the agent. Send another message while it works and Rork queues it. The queue header counts them, for example 2 Queued, and each row can be edited or removed before its turn. If a turn stops or fails, the queue marks itself · Paused so nothing runs on top of broken work. Press Resume when you are ready.

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FAQ

Yes, but design credits, not build credits. The free plan includes a monthly allowance for designing. Turning an approved design into a working app needs a paid plan. See Build credits vs Cloud credits.
Yes. Pick Build in the mode menu before you send, and Rork builds without a design. To keep the design but skip changes, press Build on the first proposal. See Design mode.
Open the ⋯ menu under any answer. It shows the model that ran, the credits it used, and the size of the context. See Undo a change and go back a version.
Stop adding messages on top of it. Revert to the last good version, then describe the change more narrowly. See How to get out of an error loop.
Plans go to .rork/plans/ and the design contract to .rork/DESIGN.md. Both travel with your code to GitHub. See How to sync your project with GitHub.

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Next steps

Undo and version history

Take back a change, or go back several versions.

Images, video, and 3D

Generate the pictures and sounds your app needs.

How to prompt successfully

Ask for an experience, not a list of features.

Share the project

Invite people to view or edit the same app.