Session 4 · Week 4 · The finale

Going Live

The final session. Your app moves from something only you can see in your browser to something on the live internet that anyone can visit. By the end of the hour, you'll have a real URL you can text to friends.

What we'll cover

  • How the internet actually works — enough to be useful
  • Deploying to Vercel: getting your app live
  • Setting up production environment variables (your secrets, on the live server)
  • Full end-to-end testing on the real thing
  • Optional: connecting a custom domain so it's at your URL
  • A short victory lap — looking at the full architecture diagram we've built up week by week

What you'll achieve

By the end of this session:

  • Your app is live on the internet at a real, shareable URL
  • You understand what "deploying" actually means and how it works
  • You have everything you need to keep building from here

New concepts

  • Server — just another computer, running 24/7, connected to the internet
  • Domain name — how "yoursite.com" knows which server to point to
  • HTTPS — the padlock in the browser, encrypted connections, handled automatically
  • Production — the live version of your app, separate from the one you test on

What you walk away with

  • A live, deployed application built by you
  • The complete architecture diagram, every piece labelled and understood
  • The skills to start your next project from scratch
  • The confidence that you can actually do this