AI apps aren't just chatbots with a better UI. They're a new class of software defined by how agents discover, connect to, and act on services, and building them well requires rethinking interface design, user journeys, and architecture.
In this hands-on workshop, we'll walk through what it means to build an MCP App or ChatGPT App, starting from first principles. What are they? What makes an agentic experience (AX) feel natural? What are the high-level design decisions that separate a demo from something production-worthy? From there, we get into the build. We'll use Skybridge, Alpic's open-source Typescript framework, to structure and architect an app that works across MCP-compatible hosts (Claude, ChatGPT) without duplicating your logic for each platform. A live walkthrough of every tool Skybridge provides to go from zero to a working AI app:
create command and starter repositories to scaffold a project in seconds
The dev server, which bundles a rendering emulator and MCP server inspector for local development
The skills that come packaged with it that helps you build your idea hassle-free
The tunneling solution to expose your local environment directly to ChatGPT and Claude for real-time testing
The hooks library for managing interactions with the model and your backend with protocol differences abstracted for your convenience
Widget-to-context synchronization and the mechanisms that keeps the model aware of what UI is currently displayed to the user, ensuring coherent multi-turn conversations
By the end of the three hours, you'll have:
A mental model for designing agentic user journeys
A working app built with Skybridge, deployable across MCP hosts and ChatGPT Apps
Hands-on familiarity with Skybridge's core principles
A repeatable architecture you can bring back to your own projects
You don't need to have built an MCP server before. You do need to be comfortable writing code and curious about where agent-first interfaces are headed.
Pre-registration and additional fee is required. To register: add it to your
MCP Dev Summit North America registration.
SHARED LINKSOur open-source repo:
https://github.com/alpic-ai/skybridge Documentation:
https://skybridge.tech/Presentation slides:
https://www.figma.com/deck/zcwLjAmoPOtXfJRUaFzrPd/26-4-Workshop-Dev-Summit?node-id=4375-984&t=DBShAWMHTqV9KTfu-1
