**Hey Everyone, I am new and making the transition to Builder.io and trying to figure out how to use the editor without AI mode, would appreciate anyone’s help.
What are you trying to accomplish**
*I am trying to edit and change the visual look of certain elements or want to add components without the use of AI, everytime I select the “Design tab at the top” instead of “interact” and “style” tab instead of “agent” it is allowing me to make changes but it doesnt really save it and making me use AI by the button of “apply x amount of changes” and using the agent instead of just saving the changes.
what am I missing here, how to access the canvas editor/builder to make this happen?*
Screenshots
This is how I see my app.
Hi @Studio55,
Great question — this is a common point of confusion for folks new to Fusion (Builder’s Projects product), so let me clear it up.
What you’re seeing is expected behavior in Fusion
In Fusion, the Design mode is the non-AI visual canvas — it gives you a Figma-like interface where you can directly click on elements, adjust spacing, padding, layout, colors, and other styles without typing any prompts. You’re on the right track by switching to the Design tab!
However, here’s the key part: because Fusion is connected to your actual codebase, any visual changes you make in Design mode still need to be written back into your source code. That’s what the “Apply X changes” button does — it’s not asking AI to generate something new from scratch. It’s using the agent to translate your visual tweaks into the corresponding code edits in your repo. Think of it as the “Save” step that makes your design changes real in the code.
So to make and save changes without prompting AI:
- Switch to Design mode at the top
- Click on any element on the canvas and adjust styles using the Style tab on the right
- When you’re happy with your changes, click Apply changes — this commits your visual edits into the codebase
- You can then create a Pull Request or continue editing
This is different from Publish (Builder’s CMS product), where changes are saved directly to Builder’s content layer without going through code.
Which product are you using?
Based on your screenshot showing the Design/Interact/Code tabs, it looks like you’re in Fusion/Projects. If you’re actually trying to edit CMS content visually without any code involvement, you may want to explore Builder Publish instead.
For more on the different modes in Fusion, check out the Mode Overview docs.
Hope that helps clarify things — let us know if you have more questions!
