Ship an app without a dev team

By the end of this track you will have

1. Step 1One sentence, one named person who needs it, and a written list of what your app will refuse to do.
2. Step 2Every entity, every field and every relationship written down on one page, before a single screen exists.
3. Step 3A working app and a written list of every way you broke it, each one fixed or knowingly accepted.
4. Step 4Every entity has rules the database enforces, and a second account proves it cannot read the first account's rows.
5. Step 5One real person will have used your app without your help, you will have notes on where they stopped, and one change will be shipped because of it.

The steps

Each one ends with a check you run yourself. The box is yours to tick when it passes.

1. 1
   Step 1.Write the one sentence the app has to earn

   45 minutesOpen to everyone

   Done means

   You have written down what the named person said back, and you have marked each of your four slots present or absent against it. Four present is a pass. A slot they never mention is not in the sentence yet, and a slot they add that you never wrote is where the sentence leaks.

   The check passed
2. 2
   Step 2.Model your data before you generate a screen

   90 minutes

   Done means

   You can trace one real record end to end through every link and land back on the owner, and no field name appears in two entities except the link identifiers. If you find the same fact stored twice, fix it now, while it still costs ten minutes.

   The check passed
3. 3
   Step 3.Generate it, then break it on purpose

   120 minutes

   Done means

   Your break file has at least twelve entries, and every entry is either fixed or marked known with a reason you would say out loud to a user. Zero entries means you did not try. Twelve is normal for a first build.

   The check passed
4. 4
   Step 4.Lock the doors before anyone walks in

   90 minutes

   Done means

   Account two asks for account one's record by identifier and gets nothing back. Not an empty screen. Nothing. Run the same check on every entity you have, including the ones you think hold nothing sensitive.

   The check passed
5. 5
   Step 5.Put it in one real person's hands

   60 minutes

   Done means

   Your note file has the total run time and a timestamp against every pause, and you have marked the longest one. A run with no pauses is a pass, and you write down the total time instead. A run where you spoke does not count, and you do it again with somebody else.

   The check passed