Whenever I’ve participated in hackathons before or built a personal project, adding a basic chat to my React app was the easy part.
But building an AI assistant? That’s a different beast.

Complex conversation flows
State that needs babysitting
Tool integrations that never quite click

Last month, I jumped into Custom Hack, a hackathon hosted by the team at Tambo, and I came across this React SDK called Tambo. 🐙

Found it Very Interesting.

UIs that build themselves in response to a conversation
AI that remembers and manages state
Streaming responses that feel instant
Tool calls that just work without endless plumbing

Tambo listens, then builds - live, in the browser, right in the conversation flow. And honestly? It felt like having a front-end engineer living inside my app, quietly handling the messy parts while I focused on the fun stuff.

Well, let me tell you more about it and then we’ll build a basic Tambo app together so you can see exactly how it works.

🚀 Getting Started with Tambo

If you’ve ever wanted to build an AI-powered chat where the interface literally builds itself in response to user messages, this is your New Tool. Here are some Features offered by Tambo.

Generative UI – Create dynamic React components from user messages.
Streaming – Show AI responses in real time.
Message History – Automatically save and manage past chats.
State Management – Keep user input and app state in sync with AI.
Suggested Actions – Recommend next steps for users.
Tool Calling – Automatically run tools while generating responses.
Component Library – Prebuilt components you can install via CLI.

And the best part? You can go from nothing to a running demo in less time than it takes your coffee to cool.

1️⃣ Grab the Starter App

Tambo comes with a generative UI chat template so you can see its magic in action without wiring everything from scratch.

Open your terminal and run:

npm create tambo-app

You’ll be asked to give your Tambo app a name - in the example below, I used my-tambo-app. Next, choose a template for your new app. I went with the Standard template. Once selected, the template will be downloaded and all dependencies will be installed automatically.

2️⃣ Change Directory to your Newly created app & Install Dependencies

cd my-tambo-app
npm install

3️⃣ Connect to Tambo

You’ve got two options here:

Option A: Run the init command (walks you through getting a free API key):

npx tambo init

Option B: Rename the provided .env.example file to .env.local and paste in your free API key from Tambo’s dashboard.

Lets go through 2nd and 3rd Steps with Option A in the Terminal:

Run: npx tambo init
When prompted to install the latest Tambo package, type yes and press Enter.
You’ll be redirected to your browser to log in to Tambo.
After logging in, copy your API key from the browser.
Return to your terminal, paste the API key, and press Enter.
Tambo will automatically create a .env.local file with your API key saved.

✅ Your basic initialization is now complete.

4️⃣ Run the App

npm run dev

Head to localhost:3000 and you’ll see the starter app running.

Now, Lets go back to the Code Editor to do the magic.

🐙 Why Tambo Makes This Easy

In /src/lib/tambo.ts Tambo lets you register tools (for fetching data) and components (for displaying it) so that your AI Assistant can dynamically combine them in chat.

Tools are like the brains - they provide the data.
Components are like the face - they make it look good.

With both, your Smart Assistant can not only answer questions but show the answer in a beautiful UI.

Imagine you’re building a community app where users can ask your AI assistant questions like:

“What events are happening this week?”

Instead of just getting a text list, wouldn’t it be nicer if your AI assistant could show an interactive list of events complete with dates, locations, and a “Register” button that opens the signup page?

That’s exactly what we’ll build today using Tambo.

1️⃣ The Event Card Component

First, let’s create a reusable component that shows a list of events, each with a Register button:

In src/components create a new file called event-card.tsx

"use client";
import { CalendarDays, MapPin, ExternalLink } from "lucide-react";

interface Event {
  title: string;
  date: string;
  location: string;
  registerUrl: string;
}

interface EventCardProps {
  events?: Event[];
}

export default function EventCard({ events = [] }: EventCardProps) {
  return (
    <div className="max-w-sm rounded-xl shadow-lg border border-gray-200 bg-gradient-to-br from-white/90 to-white/60 backdrop-blur-lg">
      <div className="p-4">
        <h2 className="text-xl font-bold text-gray-900 mb-3 tracking-tight">
         📅 Upcoming Events
        </h2>

        {events.length === 0 && (
          <p className="text-gray-500 text-sm">No events found</p>
        )}

        <ul className="space-y-3">
          {events.map((event, idx) => (
            <li
              key={idx}
              className="group rounded-lg p-3 border border-gray-100 bg-gray-50 hover:bg-white/80 hover:shadow-md transition-all duration-300"
            >
              {/* Title + Register Button */}
              <div className="flex items-center justify-between gap-2">
                <div className="text-sm font-semibold text-gray-800 group-hover:text-blue-600 transition-colors">
                  {event.title}
                </div>
                <a
                  href={event.registerUrl}
                  target="_blank"
                  rel="noopener noreferrer"
                  className="inline-flex items-center gap-1 px-2.5 py-1 text-xs font-medium text-white bg-blue-600 rounded-md hover:bg-blue-700 active:scale-95 transition-all"
                >
                  Register
                  <ExternalLink className="w-3.5 h-3.5" />
                </a>
              </div>

              {/* Date & Location */}
              <div className="flex flex-wrap gap-2 mt-2">
                <div className="flex items-center gap-1.5 px-2 py-0.5 rounded-full bg-blue-50 text-blue-700 text-xs font-medium">
                  <CalendarDays className="w-3.5 h-3.5" />
                  {new Date(event.date).toLocaleDateString("en-US", {
                    month: "short",
                    day: "numeric",
                    year: "numeric",
                  })}
                </div>
                <div className="flex items-center gap-1.5 px-2 py-0.5 rounded-full bg-green-50 text-green-700 text-xs font-medium">
                  <MapPin className="w-3.5 h-3.5" />
                  {event.location}
                </div>
              </div>
            </li>
          ))}
        </ul>
      </div>
    </div>
  );
}

💡The above Component shows a list of upcoming events in a clean, card-style layout. Each event has a title, date, location, and a “Register” button that opens the event’s link in a new tab. If there are no events, it displays a “No events found” message.

It uses Tailwind CSS for styling and icons from lucide-react to make the date, location, and external link look nice. The events come from a list passed into the component, and the code loops through them to display each one neatly.

2️⃣ Register the Component with Tambo

Open src/lib/tambo.ts and add to the array containing all the tambo Components:

{
  name: "EventCard",
  description: "Displays a list of upcoming events with dates, locations, and a register button.",
  component: EventCard,
  propsSchema: z.object({
    events: z.array(
      z.object({
        title: z.string().describe("The name of the event"),
        date: z.string().describe("The date of the event in ISO format"),
        location: z.string().describe("The location of the event"),
        registerUrl: z.string().describe("A link to register for the event"),
      })
    ),
  }),
},

💡 The above snippet tells Tambo:

name → What the component is called (EventCard).
description → A short summary of what it does.
component → The React component to render. In our case - EventCard which we Created in Step 1.
propsSchema → A zod schema that defines what data the component needs. Here, it’s an events array where each event has a title, date , location, and registerUrl.

3️⃣ Create the Tool to Supply Event Data

Now, Still in tambo.ts, add a tool that returns a list of events to the array containing all the tambo Tools:

{
  name: "get-upcoming-events",
  description: "Get a list of upcoming events with date, location, and register links.",
  tool: () => [
    { title: "Custom Hack 2.0", date: "2025-08-20", location: "Downtown Square", registerUrl: "https://example.com/register-jazz" },
    { title: "Tech Meetup", date: "2025-08-25", location: "Innovation Hub", registerUrl: "https://example.com/register-tech" },
    { title: "Tambo Tuesday", date: "2025-08-27", location: "Central Park", registerUrl: "https://example.com/register-market"},
  ],
  toolSchema: z.function().returns(
    z.array(
      z.object({
        title: z.string(),
        date: z.string(),
        location: z.string(),
        registerUrl: z.string(),
      })
    )
  ),
  },

💡 Here’s what it does:

name → The tool’s identifier (get-upcoming-events).
description → A quick summary so the AI knows what it’s for.
tool → The actual function that runs when the AI calls it. In this case, it just returns a hardcoded list of events, each with a title, date, location, and a register link.
toolSchema → A zod schema that defines the format of the returned data, ensuring the AI knows exactly what structure to expect.

With this in place, your AI assistant can instantly pull upcoming event data and render it in the EventCard without needing a database or external service.

4️⃣ See It in Action

Now when you refresh the app and click the chat button and type:

“Show me upcoming events”

🐙 Tambo will:

Call your get-upcoming-events tool to get the event list.
Render your EventCard component with the data.
Give users clickable Register buttons that open in a new tab. How cool is that ? 😁

No extra wiring. No manual data formatting. Just AI-powered interactivity.

https://vimeo.com/1110128718?share=copy

By turning plain chat responses into clickable, interactive elements, you’ve just upgraded your AI assistant from a talker into a doer.

The best part? You didn’t have to rewrite your whole app or glue together complicated APIs - Tambo lets you drop in new features like this in minutes.

Today it’s events with a “Register” button. Tomorrow it could be:

A mini booking form right inside chat
A product card with live stock updates
A quick-pick menu that changes based on what your user says

When the conversation itself becomes the interface, the line between “chatbot” and “app” disappears - and that’s when things start getting really interesting.

✨ The Outcome: Your AI Assistant isn’t just another friendly chatbot - it’s the control panel for your entire app. One moment it’s showing data, the next it’s booking a slot, creating a chart, or launching a new workflow.

With Tambo, you’re not stuck in the “question/answer” loop.
You’re giving users a living, breathing interface they can shape with words.

So go ahead, turn your chat into your app’s superpower.
Tambo makes it possible. 🛠️💬🚀

🐙 Start with Tambo
📄 Read the Tambo Docs
💬 Join the Tambo Discord

Turn Conversations into Generative React Components with Tambo

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