  We present a new method to introduce scalar potentials to gauge-invariant
chiral models coupled to supergravity. The theories under consideration contain
consistent higher-derivative terms which do not give rise to instabilities and
ghost states. The chiral auxiliaries are not propagating and can be integrated
out. Their elimination gives rise to emerging potentials even when there is not
a superpotential to start with. We present the case of a single chiral
multiplet with and without a superpotential and, in the gauged theory, up to
two chiral multiplets coupled to supergravity with no superpotential. A general
feature of the emergent potential is that it is negative defined leading to
anti-de Sitter vacua. In the gauge models, competing D-terms may lift the
potential leading to stable and metastable de Sitter and Minkowski vacua as
well with spontaneously broken supersymmetry.
