Agent-Native: Builder.io's Framework for Building True Agentic Apps

For the past two years, the software industry has been rapidly integrating AI into existing applications. Typically, this involved adding an iframe or chat sidebar to a traditional web app, resulting in a disjointed user experience. The chat sidebar required users to manually re-explain their context, while engineers maintained separate REST/GraphQL endpoints and function-calling tools for AI agents.

This created an asynchronous disconnect between user actions and agent outputs. To address these issues, Builder.io has open-sourced Agent-Native, a full-stack TypeScript framework for applications where humans and AI agents collaborate seamlessly. Agent-Native unifies the action layer by defining actions with Zod schemas and logic, enabling React UI components to interact with AI agents directly.

This approach eliminates the need for separate API endpoints and LLM tool prompts, streamlining the development process. The framework also maintains shared state and reactive data, ensuring that agent actions reflect immediately in the UI without requiring page reloads. Production-ready features include PostgreSQL support, autonomous automations, agent teams, skills and memory, and enterprise permissions.

Creating an Agent-Native app is straightforward using the provided CLI, which sets up a development environment with embedded PostgreSQL, auto-registers actions, and serves an interactive UI. Agent-Native represents a significant step forward in building applications where AI agents are truly integrated and reliable collaborators.