Mini-apps are mini for a reason - keep them simple, snappy, and fun. You don’t need a full-fledged product, just something people can interact with instantly. The magic comes from social dynamics, not complexity.
Here’s what makes a mini-app go viral in the Farcaster ecosystem:
You’re building inside a social network - don’t waste that context.
Use the Farcaster social graph to pre-fill friends and connections.
Pull in usernames, avatars, and bios from their FC profiles.
Add leaderboards, badges, and stats - competition fuels engagement.
Show activity feeds: “your friends just did X.”
Think multiplayer, even for solo experiences - show people with people.
Make it effortless and fun for users to cast what’s happening.
Add a “Share to Warpcast” button at key moments.
Auto-compose the cast text with fun copy + a link to your mini-app.
Avoid auto-tagging users in prefilled text – it might feel spammy and could discourage organic sharing.
Embed the mini-app URL in the cast.
Use Open Graph tags to generate a custom preview image for the embed.
💡 Bonus: Customize the image with dynamic data (e.g., “Castled with 4 friends” or “@alice scored 91 points”).
Your mini-app should look good in the feed - that’s where new users will discover it.
Make the preview image eye-catching and legible in small format.
Include social proof directly in the preview (e.g., avatars of active users, usage stats).
Make it easy to jump in.
Users opens your app and are automatically signed in
Support deep linking with context (e.g., invite URLs, challenge links).
Let users bring friends - share links that invite them into a specific room, game, or session.
Autofill names and avatars from Farcaster so onboarding feels instant.
Check out Warpcast Intents URL for more about deep linking.
People love to flex. People love dopamine.
Highlight who did what inside the app (recent activity, “top player,” etc).
Let people earn or collect things while using it — a badge, an early access.
Show who brought in new users. Referral vibes, but social.
Reward people for casting your mini-app. Should be easy to figure this out with protocol data and URL parsing.
Interact → get feedback → share → bring others in → repeat.
If someone uses your app and no one else knows, you failed.
Think of every click as a chance to trigger the next user.
Farcaster lets you reach users where they already hang out: their Warpcast notification inbox.
Leverage this natively social push channel to re-engage and spark action:
Send to all your followers (or specific frames/mini-app users).
Use for:
New features or challenges (“New quiz just dropped!”)
Time-limited events (“You have 2 hours to vote!”)
Community milestones (“1,000 players joined today!”)
Trigger notifications based on user actions or app events:
“You lost your top spot on the leaderboard. Come take it back 👀”
“@dave just replied to your poll.”
“Your daily reward is ready.”
Notify when friends interact with your cast or mini-app:
“@alice joined your room.”
“3 of your followers also played today.”
🔁 This helps build habit loops: users leave, but your app nudges them back.
Important
The best practice is to trigger the "Add Frame" action (and enabling notifications) as soon as the mini-app loads - this is common behavior in most popular mobile apps. However, some users may find this approach too aggressive. They might prefer to explore the app first and then decide to add the frame and enable notifications.
Be mindful not to spam. Use notifications thoughtfully - to deliver real value, spark curiosity, or tap into social FOMO.
The launch phase can make or break virality.
Add a referral or pre-save system before going live - it helps build early momentum and gives you a solid user base to notify when you launch.
Reward early signups with perks, badges, or access (e.g. waitlist access)
Use Warpcast notifications to bring pre-savers back when the app is live.
Consider launching with a challenge or leaderboard to fuel early engagement.
At Builders Garden, we’ve been building Mini-Apps and Frames on Farcaster for over a year. Through our Just Frame It incubation program, we’re supporting a cohort of builders and teams to launch standout mini-apps into the wild - and we’re also working closely with a few others, helping them go from idea to live product in just a few weeks.
We offer:
Commissioned mini-apps builds
Open-source templates and mini-app starters (check this out)
Step-by-step tutorials to learn by doing (check this out)
Whether you need a quick prototype or a polished social experience - we’ve got you.
→ DM limone.eth
Over 100 subscribers
last week i reviewed ~20 /miniapps from folks asking how to go viral. most were missing two key things: sharable moments — prompt users to share any fun/relevant action (mint, score, goal hit, etc). this drives discovery. social data — i'm here to connect, not go solo. zynga poker didn’t win on poker UX, it won on poker with friends. add these, and you’re already 10x ahead.
how to build viral farcaster miniapps https://paragraph.com/@builders-garden/viral-farcaster-mini-apps
read this @cbeav
got any guides on how to build simple mini-apps? trying to make one with the help of chatgpt but some more guidance would be great (it's telling me to use react + vercel, no idea if that's the way to go)
next.js + vercel is your way to go get started: https://miniapps.farcaster.xyz/docs/getting-started next.js starter template: https://github.com/builders-garden/farcaster-miniapp-starter @samuellhuber.eth do you have any step by step guide that could be useful here?
day 3 with mustaches: i feel 14% wiser and 37% more italian.
@cbeav follow mini app thought leader @limone.eth know there's lots of lower hanging fruit but mutuals leaderboard w/ custom brag that tags mutual above and below (I beat X, Y beat me) would go hard
100%
gonna keep adding your wisdom to the walkntalk feed https://walkntalk.tv
tks, i forgot lol!
love the mou
i’m close to @macedo’s look
haha
mou competition ? is there a mini app for that ?
those sunglasses 😍
vamp
love the shades
still always shook seeing you without the hat 😂
@payton i think you started a trend ngl
I gave the mustache a chance too 👀 @payton has really launched a new trend among us
pic or didnt happen
a 40 minutes workshop on how to build mini apps on Farcaster thanks again /monad and @linda for inviting me!
want your mini app to go viral? drop your link below — i'll give you actionable feedback and tips to boost growth, virality, and retention let’s make it pop 🫡
prefer doing solo? i got you https://paragraph.com/@builders-garden/viral-farcaster-mini-apps
Its still WIP, but your OG thoughts are always welcome! https://warpcast.com/miniapps/X_DQ70cYHoX0/product-clank
- "believe" and "believe buy" disoriented me, i would highlight more the "Believe buy" (not sure where my USDC are going to? is it like a tip? - on product detail page, show me who believed / believed buy in a project - on product detail page i'm missing a share button that goes to the feed, and shows project creator, title, logo, number of believers and their pfps - after believe / believe buying, prompt me to share that i "believed" on the feed, with a custom preview image for the project (title, logo...) and cast saying that i believed in that project - on leaderboard, show on top my leaderboard position, add a share button to share my position in the leaderboard - make the daily points streak more highlighted, you can add it top right corner of the app - i'm missing how i can create a new project
- notification when somebody i follow creates a new project - notification when somebody believes in my project - notification when my projects gets believed 10,50,100 times
Awesome stuff Limone! I might drive up to Lisbon to come and hug you ( Or u are invited for a pool party in the algarve if u want ;-)
https://memories.nexth.dev/
mmm there's not much i can say here, is a cool one shot experience, well designed - i would make the "share" button more prominent, as the main CTA of the app - i would allow users to mint their top memory for $1 - it would be cool to navigate memories from people i follow as well - the main preview image is not clear, i would showcase an example top cast and make it more clear that memories are your top performing cast ever i guess?
Good feedback, thanks 🙏
https://fundraiser.farcastle.net/
- main page should show active campaign list, and a create campaign button - campaigns list items should include: fc creator pfp and username, fc data from people who contributed - campaign detail page should have a secondary button "share" below "contribute to campaign" (not just - contributing to campaign should be possible with multiple tokens (then could still resolve in ETH if you prefer) - the share campaign preview image is not loading for me, similarly to @crowdfund i'd include campaign title, pfps of who contributed and amount contributed so far vs. target goal - make it so when sharing it's not a long cast, impersonating the campaign creator, but something simpler like "i supported @<user>'s <campaign name>..."
Grazie
@crowdfund
the app is ✨ the only thing i'd change from the in-app experience is using @daimo-pay to allow users paying with any token main issue i have is around credibility of the campaign creator, seeing who contributed and how much is great, i think you can also show me stats like how many mutuals i have with the creator not sure about notifications, these two are top of my mind rn - notification when a campaign i supported gets fulfilled - notification when somebody donates to my campaign maybe reward me with some "points" if i share a campaign on the feed and somebody ends up donating through my referral? what if the main url preview image shows active campaign preview instead of just the static app name and logo?
100%! @nicholas boost your crowdfunds by accepting any token on any chain, without changing a single part of your backend. Just plug our SDK on top of your UI. Happy to help get you onboarded!
i have a mini app for audio spaces: https://spaces.0xmoe.com/
- main preview image should show some currently live spaces (with user pfps involved) - spaces list should include info about the creator (pfp, username..) and info about current users attending (pfps, "x,y,z and 5 more are listening...") - when sharing a space, the preview image should include social proofs (who created it, who's attending...)
- notification when somebody i follow creates a space - notification when sombody i follow joins a space
gonna drop something here once i get some time to polish my mini apps!! great opportunity for mini app devs 🙌
sure, here to help!
Would love some input for @nvy25 cc @ted https://warpcast.com/nvy25/0xef20d599
sure!
@nvy25 very well done! i'm not a big news reader, but i guess would be cool if: - i was able to see what my friends on farcaster are reading / how many people opened a specific article - i was able to share an ask or question, as i might want to share one of the trending topics (cool feat), or a topic i'm interested, so that people opening the mini app go straight to that filtered articles list (maybe show how many articles resolve to that topic) - in the preview image of an article (or even the general app preview) add social proof like pfps of active users, number of active readers - add reading time in article detail pages and article shared preview images
Appreciate any feedback sir! drawcast.xyz
it's very well done! - root preview image should show how many players are playing with classic pfps list - preview image of my drawing should include my pfp and username, as well as list of people who tried guessing that - on the join page, show pfp of draw creator, as well as pfps of players who joined that drawing guess - top item on the rank page i should see my position, and i should be allowed to share it on the feed - profile page should include a share button to flex on a preview image my badges, streaks and stats (day streaks maybe should be in top navbar?) - notify me when a new drawing has been created - notify me when somebody submits a guess on my drawing
Great suggestions! Thanks for these! Im not sure about adding more notifications as ppl tend to create a lot of drawings and can be spammy
warps.fun
- missing pfps on the leaderboard - missing share button on the main page (is only on the leaderboard) - how to play / leaderboard button have same color as the MINT, while should feel secondary - i want to see how rare is a token that i got, and eventually have a button to share that specific token i minted - i want to see the total prize pool - on the sharing preview image i'd try showing: current prize pool, total players in the game (with their pfps as well)
That all makes sense. Thanks!
get the fuck out of localhost and ship a viral mini app https://paragraph.com/@builders-garden/viral-farcaster-mini-apps
👁️ spy @jc4p
a guide on how to build viral mini-apps on farcaster 👀 less about complexity, more about tight loops, social moments, and dopamine triggers sharing what we learned from building /farville, /betttr, and helping other teams ship during /just-frame-it (also: if you need help building yours, dm's open 🫡)
amazing article. the viral loop is such a key component of it cc @farcasteradmin.eth what are your core takeaways for building sucessful mini apps so far?
1. simplicity 2. incentives 3. if people don't share a mini app DAILY, it will die 4. token is a must
agree on all, except for 4. /farville is been among the trending frames since january without a token this is why we didn't launch it https://warpcast.com/limone.eth/0xa7615b3f ofc we're working on more onchain stuff - but not on an erc20 token
300 $DEGEN
Awesome, a must read for all builders 👏
ets gooo
Limone Il vero Re di Roma!
"The Mini-Apps Bible"