Once you know the basics of Instant, you may find it useful to be able to quickly scaffold a new Instant project. We built create-instant-app to do just that.

We currently offer templates for Next.js, Expo, and Vanilla Typescript. Follow the quick start below to give it a spin!

Quick start

If you haven't already, authenticate with the Instant CLI in your terminal.

npx instant-cli login

This will open a browser window where you can log in or sign up for an account. Once you've authenticated, any app you create with create-instant-app will be associated with your Instant account!

After authenticating you run the following command to scaffold a new Instant app.

npx create-instant-app instant-demo

Run the dev server to see your new app in action!

cd instant-demo
npm run dev

Huzzah! 🎉 You now have a brand new Instant project to play around with!

One-shot with Claude Code

Got Claude Code? You can use it to one-shot a full-stack Instant app!

Use create-instant-app with the --ai flag and you'll be prompted to describe the app you want to build. Give it a try!

npx create-instant-app --ai

You can think of this as a one-shot app builder in the terminal.

Right now this only works with Next.js and Expo. We're keen to improve this feature so if you have any feedback please let us know below or on Discord!