Developer Foundations line, station 9 of 9
Software Development: Idea to App
Plan, build, test and ship a real app, from a one-page spec to users' phones, and learn from what they do with it.
- 7lessons
- 4 hto read and do
- Beginnerlevel
- 7podcast episodes
- 8checked exercises
Tools you'll use in this course
The lessons open these with a template ready. They work for your own job too, no course needed.
About this course
A hands-on course for people who want to build software end to end: career switchers, junior developers who have only built tutorials, and product people who want to ship their own ideas. Each lesson is one stage of a real project, in the order a small team works through it, and each stage produces something you keep.
You take one small product for Mangrove Market's partner corner shops from an idea to a working app: a reorder app that lets a shop owner like Ravi repeat his usual order in three taps and see where it is. You write a one-page spec with goals and non-goals, sketch and test the screen flow with a shop owner, design the tables and endpoints, build a React Native front end against a small API, test the parts that matter, set up continuous delivery with GitHub Actions, and release it to a first group of shops and learn from what they do.
Each lesson has diagrams, a worked Mangrove example, real code and templates, quick checks, practice tasks (several auto-checked in your browser), flashcards and a podcast episode. The course project is your own small app with a real release, and the final exam earns a free certificate.
What you will be able to do
- Turn an idea into a one-page spec with users, goals, non-goals and the smallest useful version
- Sketch a screen flow, test it with real users and fix what confuses them before you write code
- Design the tables and API endpoints for a small app, and build a mobile front end that handles slow networks
- Test the parts that matter with unit, API and one end-to-end test, and run them on every change
- Set up continuous delivery with environments, a release checklist and a way back
- Ship to real users, measure what they do and plan the next iteration from evidence
Syllabus
7 stops, about 4 h in total. Each stop fills in when you complete the lesson.
From idea to one-page spec
Every app starts as a sentence in someone's head, and most of the wasted weeks in software come from building that sentence before anyone has pinned it down. This lesson turns an idea into one page that says who the app is for, what problem it solves, how you will know it worked, what it will not do, and the smallest version worth building first. That page drives every later stage of this course.
Product thinkingSpecsSmallest useful version
Screens and flows
A spec says what the app is for. A flow says what the shop owner does, screen by screen, and what the app shows when the network fails halfway. In this lesson you turn the reorder spec into a flow, sketch the screens on paper, and test them in a partner shop before anyone writes code.
UX flowsUser feedbackProduct thinking
Data model and API
The screens from the last lesson tell you what data the reorder app needs and what it must be able to do. This lesson turns them into four tables and four endpoints, with the few rules that keep Ravi's orders correct when prices change and his mobile data drops.
Data modelingAPIs
Building the app
The reorder app now has a spec, a tested flow and an API. In this lesson you build the part shop owners hold in their hands: a React Native app made with Expo that shows the last orders, repeats one with adjusted quantities and never loses or doubles an order on a weak mobile signal.
React NativeAPIsUX flows
Testing what matters
The reorder app works on your phone. Before a shop owner trusts it with a real order, you need proof that the few things that would hurt him cannot quietly break. This lesson shows how to choose those things, and how to cover them with fast unit tests, a handful of API tests and one end-to-end test of the core flow.
TestingAPIsReact Native
Continuous delivery
Your reorder app works and its tests pass. Now every change has to reach real shops the same safe way, every time, without anyone typing deploy commands on a laptop. This lesson builds a small pipeline with a staging and a production environment, shows how the API, the database and the mobile app each go back when a release goes wrong, and ends with a release checklist you will use in the next lesson's launch.
CI/CDReleasesTesting
Launch and learn
Shipping the app is where the real test starts. This lesson shows you how to put the reorder app in front of ten partner shops as a small pilot, measure the few things that answer your questions, hear why shops do what they do, and turn each week of evidence into the next iteration.
ReleasesUser feedbackProduct thinking
Capstone: Ship a reorder app for partner shops
A realistic project with a rubric and a model answer.
Final exam and certificate
10 questions drawn at random, 70% to pass.
Capstone project
Ship a reorder app for partner shops
About 4,000 partner orders a week reach Mangrove Market, and many shop owners order nearly the same items every week, often by phoning a sales rep. Imran, the product manager for the Partner app, wants to test a small reorder app before Lagoon Digital builds the feature into the main app. Build and ship it: a shop owner signs in, sees their last orders, repeats one in three taps with quantities they can adjust, and sees the order's status, plus a short weekly summary of what they ordered. Work like a small team: start from a one-page spec, test the screen flow with at least one real person before coding, build an API with a database and a mobile or web front end, test what matters, deploy from CI, and put it in front of at least three real users. Finish with a short report of what they did and what you would change next.
You will hand in
- A one-page spec with users, problem, goals, non-goals, the smallest useful version and success measures
- A screen flow (sketches or a prototype) and notes from at least one usability test
- A public repository with the API, database migrations and a mobile or web app
- Automated unit and API tests plus one end-to-end test of the reorder flow, running in CI, and a deploy from CI
- A launch report: who tried it, what the numbers and feedback said, and the next iteration
Check what you know
Already know some of this? Answer 7 quick questions, one from each lesson, and we will mark the lessons you can skim. It takes about 4 minutes and nothing is graded.
Questions
How long does the course take?
About four hours for the seven lessons, roughly 25 to 40 minutes each, plus 10 to 20 hours for the project, spread over two or three weeks so you have time to put the app in front of real users.
What should I take first?
Your Developer Setup, Git from the Inside and JavaScript Deep Dive. Building APIs with Node.js goes deeper on the API and is a good next course, but this one gives you everything you need for a small app.
Do I need a Mac or a paid developer account?
No. You can build and test the app on Android or in Expo Go on your own phone from Windows, macOS or Linux. Publishing to the app stores needs their developer accounts, so the project also accepts a web build or a test track.
Will it be free?
Yes. Lessons, podcasts, exercises, the final exam and the certificate are free.
Is it really free?
Yes. Every lesson, podcast episode, exercise, quiz, final exam and certificate is free. The labs and their templates for real work are free too. Plus and Premium add every lab challenge, weekly extras and a mentor on top, and they never lock the tools or the courses.
How does the final exam work?
You get 15 questions drawn at random from a larger bank. You need 70% to pass. If you do not pass, you can try again after 24 hours. The exam is graded on the server and you never see the answer key.