Build with AI: From Zero to Your First App
A 32-lesson, lab-driven beginner course: AI literacy, prompting, web basics, first page, first app, reliable AI workflow, debugging, and a finished final project. Includes 24 browser labs.
Entry - no coding background needed · 8 modules · 32 lessons · ~5 h reading
Module 1
Your first steps with AI
What AI tools do, where they go wrong, and the safe habits that keep your first weeks productive.
- Explain the difference between generating and verifying
- Hold a useful AI conversation with follow-up questions
- Tell chat tools, coding assistants and app builders apart
- Keep passwords, keys and other people's data out of prompts
- 1.What AI Can and Cannot Do10 min
- 2.Using an AI Conversation9 min
- 3.Chat Tools, Coding Assistants and App Builders10 min
- 4.Safe First Steps9 min
Module 2
Writing useful prompts and briefs
Turn a vague idea into a concrete brief an AI tool can actually build from.
- Narrow an idea to one user and one first version
- Write a brief with goal, context, scope and expected output
- Split a project into small checkable steps
- Ask for revisions with measurable acceptance criteria
Module 3
Understanding websites and files
How websites, browsers and project files fit together, with your hands on real files.
- Tell a website, a web app and a local file apart
- Explain what HTML, CSS and JavaScript each do
- Keep a small project in named files and folders
- Read a browser error and find the failing file and line
Module 4
Your first webpage with AI
Brief a coding tool, build a small business page step by step, and refine it without breaking it.
- Give a coding tool project context before asking for edits
- Build structure first, then text, style and behavior
- Fix mobile overflow and label every form field
- Point at a screenshot position when asking for a fix
Module 5
Turn a page into an app
Inputs, calculations, validation and browser storage: the four moves that make a page an app.
- Read inputs as text or numbers and handle empty values
- Show validation errors that say what to fix
- Save data in the browser and explain its limits
- Decide whether a project needs an API or backend at all
- 1.Read Inputs, Handle Empty10 min
- 2.Validation That Says What to Fix10 min
- 3.Browser Storage and Its Limits10 min
- 4.Do You Need an API or Backend?9 min
Module 6
Working reliably with AI coding tools
Small changes, backups, context handoffs and usage discipline: working with AI without chaos.
- Keep each AI task to one change in a narrow file scope
- Snapshot before a change and roll back cleanly
- Hand a project to a new chat with a written summary
- Avoid wasteful full rewrites and mind usage limits
Module 7
Debugging and testing
Reproduce first, report well, test the fix, and escape the loop of asking AI for the same fix.
- Reproduce a bug as expected vs actual plus steps
- Write a bug report with logs and the last change
- Test normal, edge and invalid inputs plus old features
- Break the repeated-fix loop with one hypothesis at a time
Module 8
Finish, publish and present
Plan the final project, run the pre-release checks, and explain the work honestly.
- Plan a final project with theme, user and three features
- Explain publishing, domains and HTTPS without buying anything
- Run the full pre-release checklist on a real project
- Write a README that states limits and the AI contribution