# Developing slices with variations (without Slice machine)

**URL:** <https://community.prismic.io/t/developing-slices-with-variations-without-slice-machine/6810>\
**Category:** Developing with Prismic\
**Tags:** slice-machine\
**Created:** [August 31, 2021, 4:33pm UTC](https://community.prismic.io/t/developing-slices-with-variations-without-slice-machine/6810 "2021-08-31T16:33:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 5

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**Author:** ![samlittlefair](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/community.prismic.io/samlittlefair/32/696_2.png) [@samlittlefair](https://community.prismic.io/u/samlittlefair)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2021, 2:51pm UTC](https://community.prismic.io/t/developing-slices-with-variations-without-slice-machine/6810/5 "2021-09-01T14:51:15Z")

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Hey @thejuniperstudio,

This is a good question. You can't create variations in the Prismic web app. And, unfortunately, @kris's suggestion won't work. The JSON structure is fundamentally different for variable Slices, and there's no support in the web app interface.

So, the workaround:

`slice-machine-ui` is meant to create both technology-specific Slice components in your codebase _and_ a corresponding Slice model in your Prismic repo. (And Gatsby support is forthcoming.) However, it should be possible to use `slice-machine-ui` just to create the model in Prismic.

You should be able to create an sm.json file with

```json
{ "apiEndpoint": "", "libraries": ["~/dummy"] }

```

And then create Slices in the UI.

You would need to make sure that your repository is on a Slice Machine repo. We also [don't have a migration process](https://community.prismic.io/t/migrating-a-large-site/4865/24), yet, so you would need to manually copy old Slices in Slice Machine.

You might have trouble with Storybook, since we haven't debugged the Storybook–Gatsby–Slice Machine integration, and that could be a blocker.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions about this.

Sam

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