Import from a repository

Any project in a git repository, or in a folder on your computer, can be imported. That includes what AI app builders make: push the project to GitHub from Lovable, Bolt or v0, or download it, and import that. Import from another host covers what every import does.

From a repository

forculus import https://github.com/acme/handbook acme/handbook

The repository is cloned with your own git, so a private one works if you can clone it. It goes into a new directory named after the repository, or the one you give as the third argument, which has to be empty. The address can be https://, ssh:// or git@github.com:acme/handbook.git. Plain http:// and git:// aren’t taken, since the code could be changed on its way.

From a folder

forculus import ./handbook acme/handbook

A zip has to be unzipped first.

What’s read

With no host to ask, everything comes from the code: detection, and any vercel.json, netlify.toml or .replit in it, read as their import guides say. Variables come from those files and from --env-file:

forculus import https://github.com/acme/handbook acme/handbook --env-file handbook.env

The import never reads a .env file in the project, and a deploy stops at one, so keep the file you pass outside the project.

Lovable, Bolt and v0

These builders make a front end, usually Vite or Next.js, often talking to Supabase.

• Supabase’s browser key (VITE_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY or a publishable key) is meant to be public, and becomes an environment variable.
• Supabase’s service key is not set. It bypasses the database’s row rules, so store it as a secret for your project’s host with forculus secret set <workspace>/<app> SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY --host <ref>.supabase.co --header apikey, and call Supabase from the server side.
• A Firebase web config key (AIza...) is public by design, but we refuse values shaped like one as variables. Put it in the app’s code.
• The builder’s own sign-in isn’t needed: everyone signs in through us, and an SDK’s requireUser() says who.

Make a Lovable app private to your company

A private Lovable app’s viewers sign in with Lovable accounts. Lovable and Forculus compares the two. Moved here, anyone you share it with signs in with a code sent to their address, or with Google or Microsoft, and you can share it with everyone at your company’s domain at once.

1. In Lovable, open Project settings, then Git, then GitHub, and select Connect. Lovable makes a new GitHub repository, private by default, and keeps it in step with the project both ways. On a paid Lovable plan, Download codebase in the same place gives you the code without GitHub. See Lovable’s GitHub guide (read 16 October 2026).

2. Import the repository, or the folder you downloaded:

   forculus import https://github.com/you/handbook acme/handbook

3. If the app calls Supabase with its service key, store that as a secret, as above.

4. Share it with your company’s domain:

   forculus share acme/handbook @example.com

You can keep building in Lovable. Each change it pushes to GitHub goes live here when you deploy it, or on every push with GitHub Actions.

From the dashboard

In Apps, select Import, then A git repository. It gives the command to run, since the import needs the code.