Hands-On Example
This quickstart will guide you through creating a basic snippet using Crust AI, demonstrating the core steps and concepts. We’ll use a simple example of a marketing agency wanting to share campaign performance with their clients.
This guide takes an Airtable base as an example, but the key concepts here are relevant for any other data source Crust AI supports: Notion, Monday.com, Google Sheets, and PostgreSQL

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Our Example Airtable Base: Marketing Campaigns

Imagine you have an Airtable base to manage your marketing campaigns. Let’s say you have a “Campaigns” table with fields like:
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Campaign Name
Single line text
The name of the marketing campaign.
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Status
Single select
Current status of the campaign (e.g., Planning, Active, Paused, Completed).
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Start Date
Date
The date the campaign begins.
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End Date
Date
The date the campaign ends.
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Budget
Currency
The allocated budget for the campaign.
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Clicks
Number
Number of clicks generated by the campaign.
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Impressions
Number
Number of impressions generated by the campaign.
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Conversions
Number
Number of conversions attributed to the campaign.
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Client Email
Email
The email address of the client associated with the campaign. Used for permissions.
This base allows you to track various campaigns and which client they belong to. Clean Shot2025 05 05at14 49 07@2x Pn Our goal is to create a shareable mini-app for each client where they can see the status and performance metrics of only their campaigns.

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Step 1: Connect Your Airtable Base

  1. Go to app.trycrust.ai and sign in.
  2. You’ll be prompted to add an integration and connect your Airtable base.
  3. Follow the prompts in the Airtable authorization window that appears. Select the workspace and the specific base containing your “Campaigns” table.
  4. Grant Crust AI the requested permissions (read access to data and structure, and write access if you plan to add interactive elements later).
Quickstart Connect Airtable Gi Once connected, you’ll be able to access the “Snippets” dashboard.

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Step 2: Create a New Snippet

  1. Click the Create New Snippet button.
  2. Select the Airtable table you want to build the snippet from (e.g., “Campaigns”).
  3. Click Create Snippet.
Quickstart Create New Snippet Gi Crust AI’s AI will now analyze the structure of your selected table and begin generating the initial snippet interface. This may take a moment.

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Step 3: Configure a Single Item Snippet (Detail View)

By default, Crust AI sets a “Single Item Snippet” type initially. Clean Shot2025 05 05at17 20 11@2x Pn

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Understanding Single Item Snippets

A Single Item Snippet focuses on showing the details of just one record. On the left side of the screen, you see a preview of your table data. The phone preview on the right shows how the details of the currently selected record in the table preview would look in the snippet’s Detail View. You can click on different records in the table preview on the left to see how the phone preview on the right updates to show the details of that specific record. Quick Start Single Snippet Record Selection Gi

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About Shareable URLs for Single Item Snippets

The Shareable URL for a Single Item Snippet is designed to point to a specific record. It typically includes the record’s unique ID as a parameter in the URL. If you get the shareable URL for a Single Item Snippet, you’ll notice a parameter like ?rec=recXXXXXXXXXXXXXX at the end of the URL. Changing the record selected in the builder before getting the URL will result in a different record ID in the URL, linking to that specific record. To learn more about how this works, see: Understanding the Shareable URL Structure To learn how to set which specific record is shown in the single item snippet, see: Selecting a Record for Single Item Snippets

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Step 4: Customize the Appearance (Optional)

While the AI generates a functional starting point, you can easily customize the look and feel. In the “Make It Perfect” section (Step 3), you can use natural language prompts to request design changes. For example you could type something like: 
"Make the header red"
The AI will process your request and update the visual preview. Quickstart Prompt Gi You can also preview the snippet on different devices (mobile or desktop).
Design Tips
To learn more about customizing the design, see: Customizing the Snippet UI/UX

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Step 5: Change to a Multiple Items Snippet (List View + Detail View)

Now, let’s say you want a client to see all their campaigns in a list, not just one at a time.
  1. In the Snippet Builder, go back to Step 1: “Select Snippet Type.”
  2. Choose the Multiple Items type.
Quickstart Change To Multi Gi The right-side preview now unlocks the List View, displaying multiple records from your table (initially, all records). You’ll also see a button or option to switch between the List View and Detail View above the phone preview in step 3.
Navigation Between Views
In a Multiple Items snippet, the Detail View is accessed by clicking on a specific item within the List View. Crust AI automatically sets up this navigation for you.

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Step 6: Control Which Items Appear: Set Permissions

By default, the Multiple Items snippet shows all records from the table. To ensure a client only sees their own campaigns, we will set up User-based Permission.
  1. Go to Step 2: “Set Filters & Permissions.”
  2. Click on the Permission tab within this section.
  3. Select the User-based permission option.
  4. You’ll be asked “Which field holds the user’s identifier?”. Choose the field in your Campaigns table that contains the value you’ll use to identify the user. In our example, this is the Client Email field.
  5. Click Apply Permission.
Quickstart Permission Setup Gi Now, when someone accesses this snippet, Crust AI will require an identifier (the client’s email) to filter the list. Testing Permissions To test this, use the “View as” input that appears after setting permissions. Enter the email address of one of your clients (e.g., jamie@example.com). The preview will update to show only the campaigns linked to that email address. Quickstart View As Gi Learn More Learn more about User-based Permission on the: User-Based Permission Explained You can also set static Filters and Sorting options here to further refine the list shown to users. Learn more on the: Setting Filters & Sorting for Multiple Items Snippets

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Step 7: Share Your Snippet

Once your Multiple Items snippet is configured, you’re ready to share it.
  1. Click the Get Shareable URL button at the bottom.
Quickstart Share Pn For a User-based permission snippet, the standard shareable URL will ask the viewers to enter their permission value. In this case, the client email. Quickstart User Permission Access Required Pn

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Next Steps

You’ve now successfully built and configured a basic, secure snippet! This quickstart demonstrated the core process. From here, you can explore more advanced features:

Refine Design

Customize the look and feel further using AI prompts.

Add Interactivity

Include elements like buttons or checkboxes for user input.

Integrate with Make/Zapier

Use automation tools to dynamically generate personalized snippet links.

Link Snippets Together

Connect different snippets to create complex workflows or portals.

Crust AI provides the flexibility to build simple data displays or complex, interconnected applications powered entirely by your Airtable data, without traditional coding.