Lovable Prompting Guide: How to Write Effective Prompts

Introduction

Lovable converts ideas into functional interfaces with AI help. It doesn't work by magic. It works when your prompt is clear, focused and connected to a real flow. The quality of thought is reflected in the quality of the result. This is not theory. It's a practice you can apply today.

The approach you'll read comes from the Mastering Lovable guide and Felix Haas's public work on Design + AI, plus Lovable's official documentation on prompting. These resources explain the logic behind the process. Here you'll see it in English and oriented towards execution.

Reference resources:

• Mastering Lovable
• Design + AI
• Lovable official documentation

What will you learn in this guide?

Main objectives

• Context and reasons for each prompting principle
• Practical application with concrete prompts and examples
• Avoid typical mistakes that make you lose time
• Templates and checklists ready to copy and paste

Expected result

More control. Less redoing. Reusable components. Coherent style. Design that already anticipates real product states.

Phase 1: Establish the foundation

1. Plan before prompting

Context: Many open Lovable and write a generic request. The result comes out generic. There's no clear audience. No key action.

Why is it important? AI doesn't guess your intention. If you don't set product, audience, reason and action, the model improvises. You lose control. The official guide puts this as the first step.

How to apply: Answer four questions in a brief paragraph:

• What you're building
• For whom
• Why they'll use it
• What unique action they should take

Example base prompt:

"I want a landing page for a budget app for freelancers aged 20 to 30. It should invite them to create their first budget in less than five minutes. Key action: create free account. Expressive aesthetic with large typography and vibrant colors. Direct and close tone."

Typical errors:

• Requesting entire pages without purpose
• Mixing multiple audiences at once
• Not defining unique action

Mini checklist:

• Clear product
• Specific audience
• Concrete reason
• One decisive action

2. Map the user journey

Context: Loose sections are built without order. People don't understand what to do.

Why is it important? Design guides behavior. A simple sequence already improves conversion. The guide expresses this as thinking about transitions.

How to apply: Sketch a short flow. Three or four steps are enough:

1. Hero with promise and CTA
2. Benefits with social proof
3. Objections resolved
4. Final CTA

Example flow prompt:

"Structure the landing in four sections. One hero with concrete promise and create account CTA. Two grid with three benefits with icons and two-line texts. Three social proof block with one testimonial and client logos. Four CTA repetition at full width with trust microcopy."

3. Define design at the beginning

Context: Trying to fix style at the end. Comes out expensive and breaks coherence.

Why is it important? Aesthetics guide typography, sizes, spacing, shadows and color. Decide beforehand. Mastering Lovable suggests this explicitly.

How to apply: Write a short style block and repeat it in each prompt.

Style example:

"Calm style. Soft gradients. Earth tones. Rounded corners. Generous padding. Inter typography. Calm and trustworthy tone."

Phase 2: Think in systems

4. Prompt by components, not by page

Context: Requesting a complete page creates noise. You lose fine control.

Why is it important? Lovable performs better by blocks. You build like with Lego pieces. You can refine one piece without redoing everything. The official material and public notes recommend this.

How to apply: Work section by section:

• Hero
• Value grid
• Testimonials
• Pricing
• FAQ

Example:

"Create hero with maximum two-line title and CTA on the right. Add subtle decorative image, without distracting. Calm style defined above. Add microcopy under button about free period."

5. Design with real content

Context: Lorem ipsum hides real problems. The design looks good until the real texts arrive.

Why is it important? Real content sets length, tone and structure. Avoids redoing. Mastering Lovable insists on writing realistic texts from the beginning.

How to apply: Write real headlines and CTAs even if provisional.

Example:

"Hero with headline 'Design with calm'. Subtext 'Turn stress into structure with Lovable'. CTA 'Start free'. Layout centered on text with generous vertical spacing."

6. Speak in atomic language

Context: Requesting a generic interface produces ambiguity.

Why is it important? Lovable responds better to small elements. Button, card, modal, input, toggle, chip. This atomic approach is part of the method and documentation.

How to apply: Describe structure and states.

Example:

"User card with circular photo, name and Follow button. Add verified badge with tooltip on hover. Smooth elevation hover. If it's own user card, hide Follow button."

7. Use aesthetic keywords

Context: Structure without aesthetics ends up in generic-looking interface.

Why is it important? Buzzwords guide typography, spacing, shadows, radii and palette. In practice they improve cohesion. This advice appears in the guide and in Design + AI articles.

How to apply: Include three to five style words.

Example:

"Hero with premium and cinematic feel. Depth by layers. Translucent surfaces. Soft motion blur. Marked contrast between headline and background."

Phase 3: Build with precision

8. Use clear hierarchy in prompts

Context: Messy prompts give messy outputs.

Why is it important? AI pays attention to the beginning and closing of the prompt. Structure helps. Documentation talks about frameworks like CLEAR and ordering context, task, guides and limits.

How to apply: Follow this hierarchy:

1. Context
2. Objective
3. Pieces and order
4. Style
5. Restrictions

Short template:

"Context: I'm building a landing for a budget app. Objective: A benefits section that explains value in three cards. Pieces: Centered title. Three cards with icon, title and brief two-line description. Style: Calm defined at start. Restrictions: Maximum two lines text per card and equalized height."

9. Add visuals by URL

Context: Designs without visuals feel empty. Make understanding difficult.

Why is it important? Demos, images and videos reduce uncertainty. Mastering Lovable recommends indicating location, style and purpose.

How to apply: Indicate three things:

• Where it goes
• How it looks
• What it's for

Example:

"Insert demo video at this URL. Place it under features section inside a full-width card. Rounded corners. Soft shadow. Autoplay on silent. Serves to show signup flow in less than a minute."

10. Use Edit strategically

Context: Regenerating everything to change a detail is slow and risks breaking other elements.

Why is it important? Editing by layers allows you to adjust without moving the rest. Mastering Lovable presents this as key practice.

How to apply: Indicate what to change and what to keep.

Example within Edit:

"Change CTA text to 'Start now'. Increase horizontal padding to 24 pixels. Keep current color and typography. Maintain button height."

Phase 4: Iterate and launch

11. Design thinking about Supabase

Context: Prototypes that don't contemplate real states fail when connecting backend.

Why is it important? Designing as if backend already existed saves rework. The guide names this directly and documentation suggests specifying states and technical context in the prompt.

How to apply: Define key states:

• User without session
• User with session
• Data loading
• Error
• Empty

Example:

"If there's Supabase session, show photo and name in top bar. If not, show 'Sign in' button that leads to auth screen. Add loading and error states in content area. If no items, show empty message with 'Add new' CTA."

12. Version control

Context: Autosave is not organization. Changing many things without record creates chaos.

Why is it important? Versioning is thinking in iterations. One valuable change per step. Notes of why it was done. The guide promotes this as habit.

How to apply: Work routine:

1. Duplicate before major changes
2. Name copy with main change
3. List in notes what was touched and why
4. Test result before continuing

Example brief note:

"Changed main CTA and adjusted spacing in cards. Objective: improve focus and readability on mobile."

Quick templates ready to copy

Benefits section prompt template

"Context: I'm creating the landing for a budget app for freelancers. Objective: Section of three benefits aligned in a row with icons. Pieces: Centered one-line title. Three equal cards with icon on top, short title and two-line description. Style: Calm with soft gradients, earth tones, Inter, rounded corners. Restrictions: Equal heights, consistent vertical spacing, each card with smooth elevation hover."

Pricing table prompt template

"I want a pricing table with three plans. Central plan highlighted. Each card with title, monthly price, list of five benefits and CTA button. Include microcopy under CTA about free period and easy cancellation. Sober premium style. Maintain mobile readability with stacked cards. Limit descriptions to one line per benefit."

Social proof section prompt template

"Social proof block with one featured quote and three client logos. Quote with small person photo and their name and role. Clean minimal style. Generous spacing. Keep neutral background to not compete with hero."

Login with states prompt template

"Login screen with email and password. Large 'Sign in' button. Send to Supabase. If error show clear message under form. If loading show spinner in button. On mobile form should occupy safe width with comfortable padding. Add 'Forgot password' link."

High-impact errors to avoid

• ❌ Requesting complete pages without breaking into components
• ❌ Using lorem ipsum for more than one hour of work
• ❌ Changing aesthetics mid-page without reason
• ❌ Not defining loading, error and empty states
• ❌ Iterating without version control
• ❌ Requesting vague changes with Edit
• ❌ Ignoring mobile and large typography in headlines

Minimum system to work with Lovable every week

• A living document of style and buzzwords
• A library of prompts by component
• A flow map per key page
• A states check for Supabase
• A versions routine with notes

Why this method works?

The model needs structure, context and limits. If you give it that, it responds with more precision. This is aligned with Lovable's own official documentation about clear prompting, prompting levels and use of examples. Additionally, Felix Haas's articles reinforce section work, use of buzzwords and real product orientation with speed.

Conclusion

Don't look for a perfect prompt in one go. Look for a sequence of brief and clear prompts that assemble a product. Think in flow. Decide style. Work by components. Use real content. Define states. Iterate with Edit. Document changes. With this cycle, rework time decreases and quality increases.

Sources and credit

This guide is based on:

Mastering Lovable. Structure by phases and principles that state prior planning, user journey, design first, component work, real content, atomic language, aesthetics with buzzwords, prompt hierarchy, visuals by URL, layer editing, backend vision with Supabase and version control. mastering-lovable.lovable.app

Design + AI by Felix Haas. Series of articles with prompting lessons, practical hacks, design stack and Lovable playbook. Explicit mention and thanks to his public work. designplusai.com

Lovable official documentation on Prompting 1.1. Principles of clarity, structure, prompting levels, meta prompting and precise editing guidelines. docs.lovable.dev

Credit: To Felix Haas for sharing his method and examples on Design + AI, and to the Lovable team for publishing practical guides and open documentation that inspire this English version.

Would you like me to convert this into a Notion template with checklist by phase and a prompt repository by component for you to use as standard system in your projects?