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A Beginner-Friendly Guide to Building Apps with Google Antigravity, Stitch, and MCP

For a long time, AI in software development felt helpful—but limited.

Autocomplete could finish your lines. Chatbots could answer questions. But when it came to real work—turning a Figma design into a real React app—you still had to do most of the heavy lifting yourself. You copied colors, rebuilt layouts, rewrote components, and manually connected everything together.

That workflow is now changing.

With the introduction of Google Antigravity, Stitch, and the Model Context Protocol (MCP), developers can move beyond "AI suggestions" and start working with AI agents that actively design, build, and iterate with them.

This guide is written for beginners. You do not need to be an AI expert. You do not need deep React experience. If you understand basic frontend concepts and can follow step-by-step instructions, this guide will help you:

  • Understand what each tool does

  • Connect them correctly

  • Turn designs into working React pages

  • Scale from one screen to a full multi-page app

By the end, you should clearly understand how to go from an idea to a running React application using this free, agent-driven stack.

Before diving into tools, it helps to understand why this workflow exists.

Traditional frontend development usually looks like this:

  1. Design a UI in Figma

  2. Manually recreate the layout in React

  3. Translate spacing, colors, fonts, and components by hand

  4. Repeat this process for every page

This creates three common problems:

  • Time waste on repetitive UI work

  • Design drift, where the code slowly stops matching the design

  • High entry cost for beginners who struggle to connect design and code

The Antigravity + Stitch + MCP stack solves this by connecting design intelligence directly to execution.

Instead of asking:

"How do I rebuild this design in code?"

You ask:

"Turn this design into a working React app."

And the agent handles the steps in between.

This workflow is built on three key components. Each one has a very specific role.

2.1 Google Antigravity: Your AI-First Workspace

Think of Google Antigravity as an IDE designed for AI agents first, humans second.

In a traditional editor like VS Code:

  • You write code

  • AI tools assist you

In Antigravity:

  • The AI agent can read files

  • Edit files

  • Run terminal commands

  • Preview apps

  • And explain everything it does

You are no longer just typing instructions—you are collaborating with an agent that can take real actions.

Key things Antigravity gives you:

  • A built-in file system

  • A terminal the agent can use

  • Browser previews

  • Native support for AI agents like Claude or Gemini

This makes Antigravity the control center of the entire workflow.

2.2 Stitch: An AI That Understands UI, Not Just Images

Stitch is not a traditional design tool.

Unlike Figma or Sketch, Stitch does not focus on vectors or pixels. Instead, it generates what can be called semantic UI.

That means Stitch understands concepts like:

  • Navigation bars

  • Forms

  • Buttons and states

  • Shopping carts

  • Page hierarchy

When Stitch creates a design, it already knows:

  • What is a component

  • What is reusable

  • What is interactive

This makes it much easier to convert designs into real code later.

In short:

  • Figma shows how things look

  • Stitch understands how things work

2.3 MCP (Model Context Protocol): The Bridge Between Them

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is what connects everything.

MCP is an open standard that allows AI models to:

  • Access external tools

  • Call APIs

  • Read and write structured data securely

In this workflow, the Stitch MCP Server acts like a translator.

It allows the AI agent inside Antigravity to:

  • Ask Stitch for project data

  • Create screens

  • Modify UI elements

  • Pull design information into code

Without MCP, Antigravity and Stitch would be isolated.
With MCP, they work as one system.

This section is critical. If this connection is wrong, nothing else works.

Take your time here.

3.1 Generate Your Stitch API Key

  1. Open your Stitch dashboard

  2. Go to Settings → API

  3. Generate a new API key

  4. Copy and save it somewhere secure

This key allows Antigravity to talk to Stitch on your behalf.

3.2 Open MCP Settings in Antigravity

In Antigravity:

  1. Click the three-dot menu (⋯)

  2. Select Manage MCP

  3. Open the mcp-servers.json file

This file tells Antigravity:

  • What external tools exist

  • How to reach them

  • What permissions they have

3.3 Configure the Stitch MCP Server

Inside mcp-servers.json, you will add an entry for Stitch.

This usually includes:

  • The MCP server command or URL

  • Environment variables (your API key)

If you are running the server locally:

  • Make sure the Node path is correct

If you are using a hosted MCP server:

  • Use the provided endpoint

After saving:

  • Click Refresh in Antigravity

3.4 Verify the Connection

If everything works, you should now see:

  • A Toolbox icon

  • Functions like:

    • list_projects

    • list_screens

    • create_screen

    • get_theme

This confirms that your AI agent can now control Stitch.

This is the most common beginner use case.

4.1 Discover Your Stitch Projects

In Antigravity, simply ask:

"What projects do I have in Stitch?"

The agent will call list_projects and show the results.

Then ask:

"List the screens in the checkout project."

No manual browsing required.

4.2 Convert a Screen into React Code

Once you choose a screen, you can say:

"Convert the Checkout screen into a React component."

Behind the scenes, the agent does several things:

Asset Extraction

  • Pulls images and icons from Stitch

  • Uses Nano Banana–generated visuals

Component Breakdown

Instead of one large file, the agent creates:

  • Button.jsx

  • InputField.jsx

  • PriceSummary.jsx

Styling with Tailwind

Most agents default to Tailwind CSS because:

  • It is fast

  • Responsive by default

  • Easy to adjust later

You end up with clean, readable, modular code.

Creating one page is useful. Creating six pages automatically is powerful.

This is where Agentic Skills come in.

5.1 What Is a "Skill"?

A Skill is a structured instruction pattern the agent follows repeatedly.

Think of it as:

  • A reusable workflow

  • Not just a one-time prompt

5.2 How the Stitch Loop Works

You give the agent a sitemap, such as:

  • Home

  • About

  • Services

  • Blog

  • FAQ

  • Contact

Then instruct:

"Create all pages in Stitch using the same theme and layout logic."

The agent will:

  1. Create the Home page

  2. Wait for Stitch to finish

  3. Use the same styles for About

  4. Repeat until all pages are done

Because the agent keeps context:

  • Fonts stay consistent

  • Padding stays consistent

  • Buttons behave the same everywhere

This avoids the common "every page looks slightly different" problem.

Generated UI is a starting point. This section shows how to level it up.

6.1 Custom Visuals with Nano Banana

Stitch uses Nano Banana for images.

You can refine visuals by saying things like:

"Update the hero image to a neon-lit futuristic gym, 8k quality."

The agent will:

  • Call update_element

  • Replace the image inside Stitch

  • Keep layout intact

No manual uploads needed.

6.2 Adding State Management

By default, generated UI has no logic.

You can ask:

"Add Zustand to manage the shopping cart across Home, Product, and Checkout pages."

The agent will:

  • Install dependencies

  • Create a global store

  • Inject hooks into components

This turns static UI into a real app.

6.3 Auto-Generating Documentation

One of the most useful features is design.md.

Ask:

"Generate design.md for this project."

It will document:

  • Colors and hex values

  • Fonts and weights

  • Component behaviors

This becomes a single source of truth for your project.

This stack does not replace developers.

It changes what beginners focus on.

Instead of:

  • Writing boilerplate CSS

  • Copying spacing values

  • Fighting layout bugs

You focus on:

  • Structure

  • Logic

  • Product decisions

You move from "UI labor" to system thinking much faster.

Phase Tool Role
Planning Antigravity Defines sitemap and requirements
Design Stitch Generates semantic UI
Visuals Nano Banana Creates custom images
Connection MCP Syncs tools and data
Coding Antigravity Builds React + Tailwind
Logic Antigravity Injects state and behavior

For beginners, this stack removes many traditional barriers:

  • No design-to-code gap

  • No repeated UI rebuilding

  • No heavy setup cost

If you can describe what you want clearly, the agent can build most of it for you.

The future of frontend development is not about writing more code.
It is about directing intelligent systems effectively.

And this stack is one of the clearest paths to learning that skill today.

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