Founder guide / Launch readiness
What to check before launching your AI-built app
A working demo is a real milestone. These questions help you see what needs attention before more people depend on it.
ALRN Tech / Practical engineering for founders
Start with what matters to your users
Write down the few journeys your product must get right: creating an account, signing in, saving important work, and completing its main task. Walk through them in the environment you plan to use for real users.
A homepage loading successfully tells you little about the rest of the application. Keep a short record of what you tried, what happened, and what you still cannot explain.
Can users access only what belongs to them?
Use two test accounts in your own application. Check whether one account can read or change the other account’s private records. If there are different roles, test what each role is allowed to do.
A hidden button is not an access-control boundary. The application must check permission where the request is handled, including access to individual records and files. Unexpected access deserves attention before more private data enters the system.
Where do credentials live?
Check how the app uses database passwords, API keys, and other credentials. Sensitive credentials should not be exposed in browser code or committed to the source repository. Use your platform’s secret-management facilities and limit what each credential can access.
If a credential has already been exposed, removing it from the visible code is not enough. Revoke or rotate it, then update the application to use the replacement.
What happens when the happy path breaks?
Try incorrect input, an expired session, a repeated submission, and a temporarily unavailable external service. Look at what the user sees and whether their work is saved or lost.
A useful next step is a small set of repeatable checks around the important journeys. Focus on failures that would affect trust or valuable data, rather than trying to cover every screen at once.
Can you notice and recover from a problem?
Know where application errors and failed background jobs become visible. Make sure someone can identify when the product is failing to perform its main job.
Check that important data is backed up and that a restoration can actually be performed. Separately, understand how to return to a previous application version after a bad release. Restoring data and rolling back code solve different problems.
Can someone make the next change?
Keep the source in version control and document the essentials: how to run the app, where it is deployed, how configuration is supplied, and how a change reaches production.
Then try one small improvement. Can you explain where the change belongs, check its behavior, and deploy it deliberately? Difficulty here is useful information about maintainability.
Turn observations into a short plan
For each issue, record its effect on users, the next action, and what remains unknown. Separate urgent risks from improvements that can wait.
You do not need to rebuild everything to make progress. A scoped technical assessment can help put the findings in context and produce a prioritized plan for the application you already have.