Retool now supports audio and visual browser notifications for app building. If you prompt Retool to build an app and navigate away from the tab, a ping sounds and a red dot appears on the favicon of the tab when you need to return to it. Now, you can multitask and return to the app builder only when your input is required.

This notification occurs at the following key points in the building process:

• The agent needs you to provide input or make a choice (such as selecting a resource).
• The agent needs your approval to run a function.
• The agent is finished building.

To turn off the notification sound, click the Model options selector in the prompting box and toggle off the Sound notifications setting.

You can now use Retool's MCP server to import React apps directly from your agentic coding environment.

Open a React app, and ask Retool to import the app. Retool guides you through the process of selecting the appropriate resources, and sends you a link to the newly imported app in the app builder. From there, you can make tweaks to the generated app, and securely publish the app using the MCP server or from the app builder.

Retool's new app builder now supports importing React apps from external sources, such as Replit, Lovable, and Claude Code, for further refinement and development in Retool.

To import your React app in Retool, generate a .zip file of the code, and select Import React code from the app builder. Learn more about how it works.

Apps created with the new app builder can now be protected and checked into your chosen Source Control Manager (SCM). Source Control lets organizations manage changes using remote SCM providers GitHub, GitLab, AWS CodeCommit, Bitbucket, and Azure Repos. Using this distributed approach, your users can:

• Prevent unwanted changes to apps.
• Work collaboratively and methodically through reviews.
• Edit React code from your preferred development environment.

To get started, first protect your app. Then you can create, publish, and tag new versions.

Builders on cloud instances can now use Retool's MCP server to build apps. Apps are built using React and use Retool's updated app builder. Connect the MCP server to Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor, Kiro, or another agentic coding environment, and describe the app you want to build. Retool's building agent generates the app and returns a preview link. Publish and manage the app from the app builder.

Beyond initial generation, you can also use the MCP server to:

• Continue building or iterating on an existing app.
• Monitor active builds and view past agent activity.
• Review function runs that require human approval.
• Inspect or read the files of an existing app.
• Cancel a failed or in-progress build.

App building tools require the user to be a builder, and the builder must authorize the mcp:write scope. Refer to the tools reference for the full list.

A new AI-powered app builder is now available. Build production-ready React apps using natural language in the app builder or through your favorite coding agent via MCP. Whatever or however you build, everything inherits the security standards your organization has already approved and implemented.

The app builder includes:

• A Chat tab where you describe changes in natural language and an AI agent plans and executes them, with file uploads and per-thread model selection.
• A Data tab that shows the resources connected to your app and the functions that interact with them, with optional approval gates on writes.
• A Code tab that lets you view and edit every file your app uses.
• Support for organization themes, third-party npm packages, and publishing and version history.

Apps run on React 19 and a curated set of supporting libraries.

App builders can now defer the initialization of modules until they're viewable to improve the initial loading time of larger apps.

When an app is initially loaded, Retool initializes all code, components, and modules. However, a common use case for modules is including them in conditionally hidden frames, and these modules don't need to be loaded when they are still hidden.

Modules now have a new option in the Inspector: [Beta] Defer evaluation until visible. When a “deferred” module is hidden (either ‘hidden’ state is true, or it is in a hidden frame, or otherwise not being rendered), Retool defers the module's initialization. When the module is shown, Retool invokes the initialization procedure that would typically happen during app startup.

This gives builders more flexibility in how components are loaded in their apps, and large apps load more quickly.

Retool made significant updates that improve Assist's app generation capabilities:

• Improved quality of app generation. Assist has an improved ability to successfully set a wider set of properties across a wider set of components.
• Quicker app generation. Generating an app from scratch is approximately 20% faster.
• Better token efficiency, especially for app editing. Token use has decreased by approximately 40-50%, depending on the change type. Users will notice a decrease in the number of context window issues they encounter.
• Improved support for building forms and using repeatable components inside apps.

READMEs can now be protected for apps that use Source Control. For existing apps that have a README, Retool will add a README.md file to your repository with your next commit. If you are protecting an app for the first time, Retool will include the README.md file automatically.

Retool now uses a service worker in the browser to cache the application frontend so that pages load faster when you revisit them. The service worker uses a stale-while-revalidate strategy: it serves the previously cached version of a page immediately, then fetches the latest version from Retool in the background. If a newer version is available, Retool automatically refreshes the page so you see the latest changes.

The cache is version-aware and automatically invalidates after a Retool upgrade, so you always end up on the latest version of the platform without needing to clear your browser cache. A hard refresh (Cmd+Shift+R / Ctrl+Shift+R) bypasses the cache and loads the latest version directly.

The service worker is enabled by default on cloud instances and on self-hosted versions 3.334-stable and later. Admins can disable it from Settings > Beta if they need to diagnose page load issues in their organization.