Build with AI: From Zero to Your First App · Module 8: Finish, publish and present
Plan the Final Project
The capstone is a real project with a theme, a user and three features. This lesson turns the course skills into a one-page plan that fits the remaining time.
10 min reading
Objectives
- Plan a final project with theme, user and three features
- Write its one-page plan: problem, scope, steps, checks
- Confirm the plan fits browser-only limits honestly
- Schedule the build across small dated milestones
Why this matters
Unplanned final projects share a fate: week one enthusiasm, week two tangle, week three rewrite, week four apology. A one-page plan written before building prevents all four: theme chosen, user named, three features scoped, steps ordered, checks listed. Planning is not bureaucracy; it is the highest-leverage hour of the project.
Concepts
Theme, user, three features. Pick one of the three capstone themes, name the single user from M02L5, choose three version-one features that pass the M05L20 backend tests as browser-only. More than three is version two wearing a capstone costume. Write the problem sentence first; everything else hangs from it.
The one-page plan. Problem (one sentence). Scope in and out (two short lists). Steps (four to seven, ordered, each with its minute-check from M02L7). Risks (biggest unknown at position two). Schedule (dated milestones: skeleton day, text day, style day, behavior day, test day). One page, pinned where you work.
Fit check. Run the three backend tests, the quota plan (M06L24) and the calendar against the plan. A plan needing multi-device sync, paid quotas or nine weekends is not ambitious; it is unscoped. Shrink until it fits, then commit. Capstones are finished by scope discipline, not by heroics.
Worked example
Theme: neighborhood food ordering. User: office lunch crowd plus the owner. Features: menu with prices, phone-order form with echo, persistent order list with delete. Out: payment, accounts, tracking, second language. Steps: six, ordered per M04L14. Risk: storage quota behavior, at position two with a test. Schedule: five dated evenings plus one test evening. Browser-only verdict written, quota counted, README line drafted. Buildable, provable, finishable.
Expected result: your one-page capstone plan with theme, user, three features, steps, checks and dates.
The common wrong move
Theme shopping: changing the idea weekly while calling it progress. Pick in one sitting using the fit check, then plan. Motion beats shopping.
Lab and next step
Lab A22 writes and fit-checks the one-page plan. Next, lesson 30 explains publishing, domains and HTTPS without buying anything yet.
Quick check
An optional 4-question self-check. Answers never leave your device, are not stored, and never count toward any assessment.
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Exercise
Write your one-page capstone plan: problem sentence, theme, user, three features, in/out scope, ordered steps with checks, risk at position two, dated milestones.
Pass criteria
Theme plus user plus max three features; in/out lists; four to seven ordered steps with checks; biggest unknown at position two; dated milestones present.