How Desde works
How a click becomes a change
The short version of what Desde does: it runs your real prototype, knows where everything came from, and writes changes straight into your source.
This page is the short version of what happens between clicking something in Desde and seeing your source file change. You do not need any of this to use Desde. It is here for when you want to know what is actually going on.
Desde runs your prototype, not a copy of it#
When you point Desde at your project, it starts your project's own dev server, using your own configuration. It does not build a simplified stand-in. That is why everything your engineers already set up, routing, plugins, hot reload, keeps working, and why the prototype you see in Desde is the real one, not an approximation of it.
Note Desde writes Vue 3 and React source, and nothing else. It can start the dev server for a plain Vite project, and also for Nuxt, React Router and Next.js. Astro is supported but off by default. SvelteKit, Svelte, Angular, webpack and Create React App projects are not supported.
Desde knows where everything came from#
When you click something in the prototype, Desde already knows which file, and which line of that file, produced it. It works this out while your dev server is serving the page: it marks every element with where it came from in your source.
That marking happens in memory, as the page is sent to your browser. Nothing is written into your repository to make it possible. Open your project in Desde and look at your files: nothing has changed, until you make an actual edit.
A change goes straight into your file#
When you change something, retype a label, switch a variant, move an element, Desde writes the new value directly into the file it came from. Your dev server notices the file changed and refreshes the prototype, the same way it would if you had typed the change yourself in your code editor.
There is no export step and no separate save file. Most changes are made this way, instantly and without any AI involved. A few need help tracing a value back to where it is really defined, and those go through the AI instead. See Why most changes are instant for when each happens.
The change lands as an ordinary uncommitted change in your working tree, exactly as if you had edited the file by hand. Committing it, branching, and sharing it with your team is covered in Commit, branch and push.