SMF·REFORM
Can a prompt replace Reform?
Forms & surveys — forms, surveys and lead capture
Exhibit tracking slip
Verdict
A one-question-at-a-time form is a small build, and the feature that actually earns its keep is partial submissions: saving each answer as it is given, so an abandoned form still tells you who started and what they said before leaving. That is a few extra lines and it changes what the form is worth. There is no hard dependency anywhere in the loop, and a working version fits in a sitting.
Exhibit A — The prompt
Received on31.07.2026Build a one-question-at-a-time form builder whose distinguishing feature is capturing partial submissions.
Form definition: an ordered list of questions, each with a type (short text, long text, email, phone, number, single select, multi select, rating, date, file upload, statement), a label, help text, required flag, and validation. Simple branching: a select answer can jump to a named question, and a jump can skip to the end.
Presentation: one question per screen, with the next appearing on submit. Keyboard first — Enter advances, arrow keys move through options, and the whole form is completable without a mouse. A progress indicator showing position, not a percentage, since branching makes percentages wrong. Respect prefers-reduced-motion, and keep every control a real labelled form element so assistive technology works.
Partial capture, which is the point of this build. Create a response record as soon as the first question is answered, and update it after each subsequent answer. A response therefore always exists in one of two states: partial or complete. Rules that make this honest rather than creepy:
- State it on the form, once, in plain words: answers are saved as you go.
- Never save an answer to a field the respondent has typed into but not submitted.
- Give the respondent a way to complete later from the same browser, resuming where they stopped.
- Provide a delete-my-response action reachable from the form, which removes the partial as well as any completed record.
Analytics that fall out of partials for free: for each question, how many respondents reached it and how many answered it, so the question where people abandon is visible. That drop-off table is the most useful artefact this build produces and no completed-responses-only form can show it.
Administration: response list filterable by state, a detail view per response showing the answers in order with timestamps, CSV export of complete, partial, or both, and an email notification on completion.
Spam and abuse: honeypot field, a minimum time-to-complete threshold, per-address rate limiting, submission size limits, and file uploads restricted by type and size and stored outside the web root.
Delivery: each form at a stable slug on its own page, plus an embed script rendering into a shadow root and sized to content.
Out of scope: payment collection, CRM integrations, a template library, and any hosted multi-tenant deployment.
Opening prefills the prompt — press enter to run it.
Exhibit B — What you lose
- B.1 the CRM and marketing-tool integrations that route a lead onward
- B.2 the template library and its designed defaults
- B.3 hosted delivery and the uptime that comes with it
- B.4 the spam defences a hosted form service maintains
Prior art
Exhibit C — Why people still pay: integrations, deliverability, and workflow depth
Because a lead form has to be live at three in the morning and has to survive being linked from somewhere popular. Uptime and spam handling are the price, not the form logic.
Questions
Can I import my Reform forms and responses?
Responses export as CSV and import as historical records. Form definitions do not export in a reusable format, so each form is rebuilt — a ten-question form is fifteen minutes, and branching rules are worth re-checking as you go.
Is saving partial answers acceptable?
It is what every form service in this category does, and the question is whether they tell you. The prompt requires a plain statement on the form, a resume path and a delete action, which makes it a feature the respondent knows about rather than something done to them.
What does it cost to run?
A small VPS with a database, five to ten dollars a month, for any number of forms and responses. Against a per-month plan this is a clear saving, with uptime as the thing you take on instead.
What is the one thing that does not survive the rebuild?
Being reachable. A lead form is a public endpoint that has to answer every request, including the day something you wrote gets attention. A hosted service absorbs that; a small VPS with your database on it does not.
Related tools
Receipt