Devlog: getting ready to ship

Spent this session getting everything ready to ship. Turns out “it works on my machine” and “a random person can actually try it” are super different things lol.

Free preview so people can actually try it

Biggest problem was the whole site was locked behind a login. If someone clicked the link they just hit a sign in wall, which is basically the fastest way to make people leave. So I made the first two lessons (Unit 1 lesson 1 and 1.2) totally free, no account needed.

Now if your signed out:

• The homepage loads like normal instead of throwing you to the login page
• The free lessons open up so you can read them, run real Python in the browser, and take the quiz
• Every other lesson has a little lock icon and sends you to login
• Save and Check still ask you to sign in since those need an account (progress and the AI grading are tied to your user)

Best part is running code and the quizzes already worked without an account, so the free preview actually feels real and not just a teaser. Pretty happy with how that turned out.

Lock icons on the homepage

Added some logic so signed out people see a lock on the lessons they cant open yet, plus a “Free preview, sign in to unlock all lessons” message at the top. The free ones keep the normal arrow so its obvious which ones you can actually click.

Fixed the README

My old README was kinda lying at this point lol. It said “no server needed” and “all your data stays locally” which used to be true but isnt anymore now that I got Supabase doing accounts, progress syncing, and AI grading. So I rewrote the whole thing to actually match what the project does, threw the live demo link right at the top, and explained how the free preview works.

What I checked

• Made sure my OpenAI key never got committed (its gitignored and the grading function reads it server side only)
• Tested the signed out flow in an incognito window so I could see exactly what a new visitor sees

Feeling really good about where its at now. Basically just doing one last check over everything before I actually ship it!!!