The Good Tech Companies - How To Integrate Lovable Apps with External Sources: A Step-By-Step Guide with Membrane

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

This story was originally published on HackerNoon at: https://hackernoon.com/how-to-integrate-lovable-apps-with-external-sources-a-step-by-step-guide-with-membrane. Use ...Membrane (Integration App) to build integrations to any app with AI. Check more stories related to programming at: https://hackernoon.com/c/programming. You can also check exclusive content about #integration, #lovable, #lovable-ai, #ai-integration, #data-integration, #ai, #integrations, #good-company, and more. This story was written by: @membrane. Learn more about this writer by checking @membrane's about page, and for more stories, please visit hackernoon.com. Use Membrane, the AI-Native Integration Layer, to build Lovable apps with reliable integrations to other apps.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This audio is presented by Hacker Noon, where anyone can learn anything about any technology. How to integrate Lovable apps with external sources, a step-by-step guide with membrane, by integration app. Lovable. Dev is a delightful and powerful AI coding agent that can generate modern, usable sites and apps in minutes. Its strength lies in fast and effective scaffolding, interactive dashboards, polished UIs, and smooth user experiences.
Starting point is 00:00:26 But if you've ever asked Lovable to build an end-to-end integration, you'll know it looks amazing, but can struggle to connect reliably to external services. Integrations aren't fault-tolerant. They require reliable authentication, solid integration logic, and secure execution routes. That's where membrane comes in, the I-native universal integration layer that allows you to build connections to any app, for any use case. A practical experiment let's ask lovable to create a scaffolded SaaS platform dashboard that allows users to connect their own HubSpot and OpenAI accounts and generate a smart to-do list from their HubSpot tasks. Here's the initial prompt to Lovable. Greater than create a SaaS dashboard with a connect to
Starting point is 00:01:08 HubSpot button A connect to greater than OpenAI button and a way for users to fetch their HubSpot tasks and process greater than them with Open AI in order to produce a prioritized to-do list. The results. What Lovable does really well, on its own, generates a slick UI with connection buttons. Prompts us to connect Supabase for a backend, which our use case would require. Generates a scaffolded, API-based infrastructure after referencing the relevant OpenAI and HubSpot docs. Where it could use some help, Lovable asked for my personal OpenAI API key, which doesn't make sense for our use case. We want this app to let any user connect their own accounts. It generated brittle, custom Mooth flows, which would have leaked tokens in client state, if they had worked. The system lacked
Starting point is 00:01:57 reliable integration logic. It was designed with one-off API fetches that, even if working, would not have allowed retries, multiple users, or secure action execution. Result. The app looked great, but the integrations didn't work end-to-end. Adding membrane to the mix. To help Lovable vibe its way to a fully integrated app, we introduce Membrane. Here's how. One, Feed Lovable the membrane AI context, we pasted Membrane's initial AI context directly into the conversation. This gave lovable knowledge of Membrane's integration framework, connection UIs, connectors, authentication tokens, etc. 2. Leverage Membranes connection UI instead of trying to scaffold its own interface for
Starting point is 00:02:40 user connections. Lovable was nudged to use Membrane's pre-built connection UI, which automatically handles OAuth, token storage, and user-specific authentication. 3. Implement Supabase backend pasting the membrane AI quickstart context also taught Loveable how to configure Supabase to support membrane's backend requirements. Lovable asked for my membrane credentials and stored them as secrets to be retrieved by Supabase edge functions. Now, when prospective users want to connect their accounts for HubSpot and OpenAI, the system will create membrane connections that are authenticated with my
Starting point is 00:03:14 workspace credentials. 4. Configure the membrane workspace since Loveable doesn't currently support connecting to Membrain in a local dev environment. We manually added HubSpot and open AI connectors through the membrane console, which only takes a few clicks. Configured the relevant actions, fetch tasks, summarize tasks. Grab the drop in SDK calls from the console. Membrane provides exact code snippets that you can drop into your app for action execution. Five, provide lovable with the SDK calls we pasted the membrane action snippets into lovable so that it could wire up backend calls correctly. Six. Troubleshoot with vibes if lovable became confused, which can be expected within the vibe coding experience. We reminded it of two truths. Remember that Supabase handles
Starting point is 00:04:01 backend off and token persistence and users connect their own accounts. Never ask for my individual API keys for HubSpot or OpenAI. The membrane AI context is the source of truth for connections and actions. Experiment result, after lovable elegantly vibe squashed a couple of runtime errors, the app worked. Integrated end-to-end and reproducible. The app features a fully integrated workflow, allowing users to connect to their own open AI and HubSpot accounts with Membrane's connection UI components. Generate an AI optimized, smart to-do list. Navigate a sleek, interactive UI. The only manual steps required were adding connectors in the membrane workspace and configuring membrane actions, each of which required just a few clicks. The difference with Membrane
Starting point is 00:04:48 Membrane turned lovable from a UI wizard into a production-ready integrations builder. Auth flows. No more individually managing API keys. Users can connect their own HubSpot and OpenAI accounts, and connections are handled securely by membrane. Actions. Instead of brittle one-off fetches, membrane actions provided reusable, reliable integration logic. Superbase plus membrane. Secure, multi-tenant backend without reinventing the wheel. Now, when a user connects HubSpot and Open AI, the app reliably fetches tasks, summarizes them, and provides a secure, user-specific to-do list. Experiment analysis, vibe coding pain point membrane fix result lovable tries to create a single user, hard-coded integration key membrane connection U as each user connects their own accounts securely brittle, non-functional oath, token leaks lock membrane authentication secure, multi-tenant athon off API calls repeat, button membrane actions reusable, reliable integrations integration debugging
Starting point is 00:05:50 checkered flag membrane integration logic minimal debugging required, scaling the vibe the value of lovable is in fast iteration and beautiful UIs. The value of membrane lies in its reliable and scalable integrations. Together, they vibe into something greater. Developers can sketch ideas at the speed of thought with lovable. Membrane ensures those ideas actually work across any SaaS app. Bottom line. With membrane in the loop, Loveable doesn't stop at ideation and starts being a true SaaS integrations builder. Start building integrations today. Try membrane. Try membrane. Membrane. Explore Loveable. Thank you for listening to this Hackernoon story, read by artificial intelligence. Visit hackernoon.com to read, write, learn and publish.

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