App types
The thirteen kinds of App a Business ships, told apart by the sides they serve and the work they carry, with a study of each.
startupbuilder.dev defines the App: "An App is an Interface where people work with a Product's Nouns and Verbs through screens, backed by its API." (App). The pages here study thirteen kinds of App before any App definition exists. Each type is defined for any Business.
A Startup is a type of Business. The Startup layer changes which type comes first and how much is automated, never what a type is.
Two types differ when they differ in the work they carry and the sides they serve, never in layout. Five questions test it: who signs in, which record dominates, who acts next, how money moves, and who may settle what. A difference kept as an axis inside one App is not a type boundary. The list runs in the order an idea-stage founder needs them.
| Type | Sides | Unit of work | Owner-named examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Developer portal | The Customer's developer, account owner, payer and agents | Key, usage against Limits, request; the Customer's own analytics | Developer dashboards |
| Party portal | A party with rights in the work: buyer, client, borrower, insured, claimant, principal | The party's projection of a work item or standing account | Services delivery portals; services-as-software, buyer side |
| Worklist | Any Worker, human or agent, the Business's own or outside supply | A Task routed to me, closed with evidence | worklists.app; HITL dashboards, settling; the gigs.lawyer Signer app; the closers.deals console |
| Operating review | Owners, accountable Roles, Role agents, Watchers | The Goal tree and the review that ends in a Decision | Dashboard and analytics, for the Business itself |
| Admin | The Business's operators, over subjects who never sign in | A record and a named Action with a reason | Admin |
| Agent console | The Business that runs or sells an agent, and the hiring manager | The agent: Version, evals, rung and scope, sessions | Managed agents |
| Directory | Listed parties, free browsers, the operator | A Listing | A marketplace's seed stage |
| SaaS workspace | A tenant's members, guests and agents | The tenant's own records | BI sold to a tenant |
| Marketplace | Demand, supply and the exchange operator on one ledger | The Transaction: match, hold, settle, split | Marketplaces; gigs.lawyer and closers.deals as exchanges |
| Delivery and dispatch console | The provider's staff, dispatchers, stewards, a licensed desk | Dispatch of demand into work, and the pipeline by state and ball | marlow.legal; services-as-software, operator side; HITL dashboards, supervising |
| Booking | Booker, provider, front desk, resources | A booking against computed availability | None named |
| Storefront | The shopper and the merchant's staff | The Order and its payment, fulfilment and return machines | None named |
| Disclosure room | The discloser and outside holders and governors | A released, sealed Edition and each reader's access | Investor, board and LP reporting |
Services-as-software ships four of these over one record set: a party portal for the buyer, a Worklist for the human and agent steps, a console for the operator, and an Operating review for its own numbers. What every App needs reads the thirteen together.
Merged and renamed
| Earlier study | Now |
|---|---|
| HITL inbox | Merged into the Worklist as its authority register |
| Worker app | Merged into the Worklist as its attest, propose, capture, presence and do registers |
| Service portal | Renamed Party portal and widened to every party relation |
| Delivery console | Renamed Delivery and dispatch console and widened to digital and physical work |
Dashboards and analytics
Both a capability and two types. Every type renders numbers through one measurement plane: declared Metrics, honest readings, the View address, a measurement policy, watches and Reports. The Business steering itself is the Operating review; releasing numbers outward is the disclosure room. startupbuilder.dev defines the Dashboard:
A Dashboard is one unified view of a scope, rendered as Markdown for Agents, screens for Humans, and JSON for native clients.
A Dashboard is what every type renders, so no type is named Dashboard; see Dashboard.
| Reader | Where it lands |
|---|---|
| The Business's KPIs, Goals and OKRs | Operating review |
| Product and usage analytics about the Business's own Customers | Operating review, its product analytics workbench |
| A Customer's usage, a tenant's reports, a listed party's leads | A projection inside the developer portal, party portal, directory, SaaS workspace, marketplace and storefront |
| Analytics sold as the Product | An Offer delivered through the developer portal; a SaaS workspace when sold to a tenant |
| Investors, board, LPs, lenders, auditors, regulators | Disclosure room, with the Operating review as the owner's private reading of the same snapshots |
| One agent's performance | Agent console, with roll-ups in the Operating review |
| Work performance | Delivery and dispatch console, about the work by object and step; the performer's own record in the Worklist; never per person to an employer |
| Dashboards across Apps | One View address per scope, Role, window and environment, rendered by every type |
What is not a type
| Candidate | Where it lands |
|---|---|
| The operator console | A composition: Worklist, Operating review, Admin, agent console and delivery console in one shell |
| Portfolio or Studio console | The Operating review at Portfolio scope, plus Admin across held Businesses |
| Support desk | A composition: the console runs inbound requests, the Worklist approves drafted replies, the party portal is the Customer's side |
| The operator's Money area | A composition: Admin for records, the Worklist for approvals over Limits, the Operating review for runway and spend |
| Department sold as a Service | A composition: an operated SaaS workspace, the party portal, the Worklist, the console, the agent console and the Operating review |
| CRM, operations, data platform | Systems inside Admin, or a SaaS workspace when sold to a tenant |
| Mail client | A channel the portals and the Worklist reach people through |
| Trust center, status page | A Site |
| Builder IDE, founder game layer | The platform's own Interfaces, not Apps a Business ships |
| Community, courses | Out until a Product Template asks for them; internal training is Worklist Tasks with attestations |
Watch-listed
| Candidate | What would make it a type |
|---|---|
| Demand console | The Business's own outward demand: Play runs under a Demand Budget, every Message through a send gate, Suppression across related Brands, ad spend inside its delay window, and the Business's own sales pipeline. It is the only candidate that spends outward to acquire. A prototype decides between a type and a composition of the Worklist, Operating review and Admin; admitted, it ranks near the Operating review. |
| Dataset release console | A Source with a rights lifecycle and a Version released to every Customer at once; today a preset over Admin and the console |
| Licensed-operator desk | Today the owned-edge axis of the delivery and dispatch console |
| Consolidation view | Today a SaaS workspace over records the tenant does not own |
Open
How an App is defined stays open. So do the topics these pages replaced: the screens of an App, the data contract they read, and designed states and their addresses.
The rules that keep an App quiet, and the anatomy of list, record and form Views, are open too. Each waits on the prototypes in What every App needs.