Writer

If you don’t give the AI direction, it can’t drive you to the destination.

I hit a surprisingly common trap while building an app demo with Figma Make.

My instruction to the agent was simple:

Please implement based on what’s in my Figma Make share link.

Sounds reasonable.

But here’s the problem: a share link is usually a demo, not a behavioral spec.

What I got wrong

To move fast, I made the starting screen the main tab bar in my Figma Make project.

The agent did exactly what it saw:

• it treated the demo as the requirement
• it implemented “launch → main tab”

For a demo, that can be fine.

For a real product, it’s usually wrong.

A real mobile app launch is a state machine

On mobile, a standard launch flow is not “whatever the first UI looks like.”

Typically, after app launch you enter a dedicated launch activity/view controller and run a state machine, for example:

1) Force update / soft update / OK

2) Only if OK → check whether we can auto-login

• if yes → go to main tab
• if not → go to login

Those conditions and branches are the direction.

The UI is just the outcome.

Why I thought the agent was “overwriting” my work

At first, I kept thinking the agent wasn’t following my instructions and kept changing my implementation.

Then I checked the React site Figma Make actually built.

The flow was already “locked in” by my demo.

In other words:

• the demo defined the world I gave the agent
• the agent simply inferred behavior from visible states

The agent didn’t fail.

My direction did.

Takeaway: define behavior before UI

If you want AI to build the right UI, define behavior first:

• entry states
• branching conditions
• success criteria

UI is the outcome.

The flow is the direction.

Editor

Strengths:

• Strong hook and clear single point.
• Concrete details (Figma Make, React build verification, update/auth branches) make it credible.

Edits for the final:

• Move “demo ≠ spec” earlier so the main contrast shows up faster.
• End with a tight checklist readers can reuse.

Final

If you don’t give the AI direction, it can’t drive you to the destination.

I hit a common trap while building an app demo with Figma Make.

My instruction to the agent was:

Please implement based on what’s in my Figma Make share link.

Sounds reasonable—until you realize the link is a demo, not a behavioral spec.

To move fast, I made the starting screen the main tab bar.

So the agent did exactly what it saw:

• it treated the demo as the requirement
• it implemented “launch → main tab”

But real mobile app launch is a state machine.

Typically, after app launch you enter a dedicated launch activity/view controller and run checks like:

1) Force update / soft update / OK

2) Only if OK → check whether we can auto-login

• if yes → main tab
• if not → login

At first, I thought the agent was ignoring instructions and “overwriting” my work.

Then I checked the React site Figma Make actually built—the flow was already locked in by my demo.

The agent didn’t fail.

My direction did.

Takeaway: define behavior before UI.

A minimal checklist:

• entry states
• branching conditions
• success criteria

UI is the outcome.

The flow is the direction.