Base44 This Week: Base Code Puts Designers Inside Real Codebases, Plus 5 Updates Worth Your Time

If you only read one thing about Base44 this week, read the first section. Base44 just shipped a product that puts designers inside real codebases, and it changes who gets to touch production software. Then there are five more updates worth your time, from branded emails to a free domain.

This is the first of our weekly Base44 roundups. Every week we pull the notable things from Base44's own changelog, blog and announcements, and translate them into what they mean for the people we serve at NewForm: designers moving into product, freelancers shipping client work, and builders launching their own things. If you want to try any of this, start a Base44 account here and follow along.

1. Base Code: a Figma-style workspace for real codebases

What it is. On September 28, Base44 launched Base Code, a standalone product that connects any GitHub repository to a shared cloud workspace. Its AI agent reads the codebase, provisions whatever the app needs (databases, infrastructure, secrets), spins up a live preview, and lets anyone on the team make changes through chat. Every change lands as a branch and a pull request, so engineers keep their normal review process. GitHub stays the source of truth.

Base44's Chief Product Officer Yoav Orlev described it to Calcalist as "a workspace similar to Figma, but designed for developers and the entire team, where everyone can collaborate on the same code simultaneously." Base44 is openly positioning it against Claude Code and Cursor, with one difference: nothing to install, and it runs in a browser or on a phone.

Base Code: AI chat on the left, the codebase and a live preview on the right, and a Create PR button. Image: Base44, via Base Code docs.

Why it matters to designers and builders. This is the gap most of us have lived in. You can design the fix in Figma in ten minutes, then wait two sprints for someone to move a padding value. Base Code lets a designer open the actual app, describe the change, see it live, and hand engineering a PR instead of a Loom. For freelancers who inherit client codebases, it also means you can quote on changes to existing products, not just greenfield builds.

How to use it.

1. Go to app.base44.com/base-code and click Connect GitHub, then authorize Base44 Builder for the repositories you want.
2. Pick a repository and a branch (or paste a repo link).
3. Wait for the agent to analyze the codebase and set up the environment.
4. Describe your change in the chat, check it in Preview, then click Create PR.
5. Let the engineer review and merge as usual.

Two details from the changelog make this safer than it sounds: your first Base Code turn in an imported app is free on any model, and upstream commits from the repository are now tested in a separate sandbox before they reach your main. If the check fails, you get a repair branch instead of a broken app.

Who should care. Product designers on engineering teams, agencies maintaining client apps, and anyone who has been told "we will get to it next quarter."

Sources: Base Code docs, Base44 product changelog, Calcalist.

2. Design your app's emails (finally)

What it is. A new Emails tab in the app dashboard, released October 2. Base44 writes a set of starter emails already styled with your app's logo, colors and fonts. You can pick a template, ask the AI to design a new one, preview it on desktop, tablet and mobile, and send yourself a test. It also lets you customize the built-in emails your app already sends (password reset, email verification, invitations, access approved), and add any designed email as a Send email step in a workflow. Builder plan and above.

The new Emails tab: start from a template, generate with AI, or customize the built-in emails. Image: Base44, via Designing your app's emails.

Why it matters. The transactional email is usually the ugliest thing a product ships. For designers, this is the last unbranded surface in a Base44 app getting a proper design pass. For builders, a welcome or onboarding email that looks like the product is one of the cheapest conversion wins you can make.

How to use it. Dashboard, then Emails. Hover a template and click Use this template, or describe the email in the AI chat. Preview on all three screen sizes, send a test, then ask the chat to add it to a workflow (for example "send the welcome email when a user signs up").

Who should care. Anyone with signups. Especially people selling a product or a course through their app.

Source: Designing your app's emails.

3. Decide, page by page, what search engines see

What it is. The Meta tags tab on the SEO & GEO page now has a search visibility toggle per page, plus a column showing what is indexed. Turning a page off removes it from your sitemap and adds a noindex tag. You can also hide the whole app from search, with a banner so you do not forget.

Page search settings: one toggle per page, and a column showing what is indexed. Image: Base44, via Optimizing your app's SEO & GEO.

Why it matters. Half-finished pages, internal dashboards and client previews should never show up in Google. Until now you needed a workaround. Now it is a switch. Pair it with the AI Visibility tab we covered last week in our AI Visibility post.

How to use it. Dashboard, Marketing, SEO & GEO, then Meta tags. Flip off anything that is not meant for the public, then re-run the scan.

Source: Page search settings.

4. Export presentations to PowerPoint or Google Slides

What it is. Decks built in Base44 can now be exported as an editable PowerPoint file or copied straight into your Google Drive as Google Slides.

The Export tab: PowerPoint file or a copy in your Google Drive. Image: Base44, via Building a presentation.

Why it matters. Designers and freelancers pitch constantly. Building the deck with AI is only useful if the client can open it in the tool they already use. This closes that loop.

Source: Exporting your presentation.

5. A free first-year domain on yearly Starter plans

What it is. From October 4, every yearly plan includes a free domain for its first year, including Starter. You claim it within 60 days of starting the plan: open Domains in your app dashboard, click Buy new domain, and pick the one marked free.

Why it matters. If you have been launching portfolio pieces or side projects on a base44.app subdomain, the math on going yearly just changed. A custom domain is the single biggest credibility upgrade for a small product.

Source: Which plans include a free domain?.

The new Add action card on the workflow canvas: pick what it does, then the AI asks what should trigger it. Image: Base44, via Creating workflows.

Quick hits

• Start a workflow from the action. The workflow canvas now has an Add action card next to Add trigger. Pick what the workflow should do and the AI asks what should set it off. Good for people who think in outcomes, not triggers.
• Sonnet 5.5 is now the Sonnet option in both the AI chat and the agent editor, at the same credit rate.
• Test a table's permissions from the Data page. Open your app's preview as another user on a page that reads that table, and catch permission gaps before your users do.
• Auto approve still asks before widening access. Even with Auto approve on, the chat checks with you before giving someone write access or loosening table permissions. A sensible guardrail.
• Scheduled workflows can run on the last day of the month or on a specific weekday like the second Tuesday.

Our take

Base Code is the real story, and not because of the Cursor comparison. It is because the handoff between design and engineering has been the slowest part of every product team I have worked with, and this is the first tool that lets a designer propose a change in the medium engineers actually review: a pull request. I would use it this week on any client codebase I have access to.

The email designer is the one I would have asked for if someone had let me. Every Base44 app I have seen sends plain, unbranded system emails, and that is now a fifteen-minute fix.

The domain change is smart for new builders and ignorable for everyone else. The enterprise items this week (SSO plan changes, connector approval policies, embedding policies) are solid but not what most of our community needs today, so we left them out.

If you want to try Base Code or the new email designer, sign up for Base44 here. And if you ship something with either, tell us. We feature community builds.

Source for everything above: the official Base44 product changelog and Base44 documentation.