Launch checklist

Your app is deployed. Before you share it widely, it's worth one last careful pass. In this lesson, you'll work through a launch checklist you can reuse for every app you build.

What is a launch?

Think of opening day at a new café. The kitchen already works. Now you sweep the floor, fix the crooked sign, and practice greeting your first customers. A launch is that final check and the moment you start sharing your app.

The polish checklist

Click through the live site and tick off each item:

• Every page has a clear title and no "Lorem ipsum" placeholder text
• All images load and look consistent
• Buttons show a loading state, so people don't click twice
• Empty states are friendly ("You have no bookings yet. Make your first one.")
• Error messages are in plain English
• The browser tab has your app's name and a small icon (called a favicon)
• Any settings you turned off for testing (like email confirmation) are turned back on
• If payments are still in test mode, the site says so

Let your AI coding tool do a pass for you:

Do a launch polish pass on this app.
Check every page for: placeholder text, missing loading states,
unfriendly empty states and error messages, missing page titles,
and inconsistent spacing or image sizes.
List what you find first, grouped by page. Then fix them one page at a time.
Add a favicon if there isn't one.

The mobile check

Many people will open your app on a phone. Open your live link on your own phone, or use the browser's device view: open the developer tools (F12) and click the phone-and-tablet icon.

• Can you read all text without zooming?
• Is the menu easy to open and close?
• Are buttons big enough to tap with a thumb?
• Does every page fit without scrolling sideways?
• Do pop-ups or chat widgets cover anything important?

If something is off, describe it clearly: "On a phone 375px wide, the table on the dashboard scrolls sideways. Make it a stacked list on small screens."

Adding a custom domain (optional)

A domain is your site's address, like a street address for a shop. Your free hosting link already works. A custom domain just looks more professional. You buy one from a domain seller (a registrar) for a yearly fee.

1. In your host (for example Vercel), open your project, then Settings, then Domains
2. Type your domain and click Add
3. The host shows you DNS records to add. DNS is the internet's address book.
4. Copy those records into your registrar's DNS settings and wait. It can take a few minutes to a few hours.
5. Update your site URL variable and the redirect URLs in your login and payment providers. Then redeploy.

Monitoring basics

Monitoring means keeping an eye on your app after launch, so you hear about problems before your users complain. You don't need anything fancy to start:

• Logs: your host shows server errors in a logs or functions tab. Check it after launch.
• Usage and spending: check your AI, database, and payment dashboards, and set spending limits
• A way to report problems: a simple "Send feedback" link or email address
• Uptime checks: free services can ping your site and email you if it goes down

My app is live on [host]. Suggest a simple, free monitoring setup
for a beginner: where to see errors, how to get alerted if the site
goes down, and which spending limits I should set. Keep it short.

Your demo script

A demo is a short story, not a tour of every button. Aim for about three minutes. Here is a template you can adapt:

# [App name] demo (3 minutes)

1. The idea (20s): who it's for and what problem it solves.
2. Main flow (60s): do the one thing the app is best at.
3. The "wow" part (40s): for example, the AI feature or a live update.
4. Account features (30s): log in, show saved data or history.
5. Admin side (20s): if you have one, show how you manage content.
6. How I built it (20s): "I planned it, then built it with an AI
   coding tool, a database, GitHub, and a hosting service."

Practice it twice. Use test accounts that are already logged in, so you don't type passwords on screen.

Common mistakes

• Adding "one more feature" on launch day and breaking something. Freeze features, only polish.
• Never testing on a real phone
• Switching to live payment keys before you're ready to take real money
• Showing your env file or a dashboard with keys during a screen share

What's next?

You now know how to plan, build, debug, deploy, and launch an app with AI. Next, let's look at where to go from here and how to keep building.