Verified: 2026-10-13

You have creative mode. You still dug straight down.

Building by asking feels like creative mode: anything you can describe, built in a minute. But your world runs with the gates open, and your guests are in it. One change breaks something else, you say "try again", and the third try is worse than the first. Infinite blocks were never the problem. Every Minecraft player learns "never dig straight down" the hard way, once. Developers have their own list, learned the same way.

LEVELS: 5TIME: ~1 HRCODE: 0COST: FREE

This course, in one line. The five rules developers learned by losing their work, written for someone who builds by asking. About an hour, no code, done by talking to your tool.

Who is playing

Five things are on the screen in every lesson, and they keep their names all the way through.

YOU · the playerYou hold the controller, the saves, the map and the guide. You give the orders, and you check the work. The controller never changes hands.

gives orders to▼

THE CHARACTER · your AI toolA worker you give orders to: go mine, go gather. Fast, tireless, and guessing what you meant, so it wanders and gets it wrong. Lovable, Bolt, Cursor and Claude Code are different characters for the same player: you.

works in▼

YOUR WORLD · your appWhat you build, keep and copy. Not the chat, not the editor. It has saves, it can be copied for practice, and it lives as a folder you can move. Every move in this course keeps it safe while the character works in it.

and every world has saves▼

AUTOSAVE

The platform's own undo. Saves when it wants, with no name you chose, written over. Enough until the first time it isn't.

YOUR SAVES

Named, dated, kept where the platform can't lose them. What this course gives you.

The strategy guide is the five moves below: a route one player found, many tested, and someone wrote down. Developers call them their habits. This course is page one of the guide.

Autosave, or your own saves

The tool comes with an undo, a retry and a preview. Developers use all three and trust none of them. Here is the difference, move by move.

AS IT COMES

The platform's rollback is your only undo.
You say yes to the whole change, unread.
The first real test is on your users.
"Try again" is your only fix, three times.
Your app and its data live wherever the platform put them.

WITH THE GUIDE

Your own save, with a name you chose.
The list of what a change touches, before you say yes.
A test run with the gates closed, where nothing counts.
Two tries, then reload and start fresh.
A copy of your world and its guest book that you hold.

Same character, same world. The difference is the orders the player gives, and what the player checks between them.

Level select

Five moves, one lesson each, in the order you need them. Like Minecraft, each one builds on the last: wood before the pickaxe, the pickaxe before the mine. You learn each by trial and error, on a save you can reload, and each ends with something to check in your own app. By level 5 you have a system.

LV 1
Make a save point you can go back to
"Where did the working version go?"
your save files, a save, its name, loadrepository, commit, tag4 min
LV 2
See what a change will touch before you say yes
"Which change broke it?"
the placement ghost, one block per savethe plan, small commits, a diff5 min
LV 3
Try every change on a copy first
"Don't test on your users."
the guests, the gates closed, the gates open, the guest booka preview, staging, environment variables7 min
LV 4
Stop after two tries, reload, start fresh
"Stop after two tries."
the death message, two deaths, load the save, a fresh runreset to the save point, a new conversation6 min
LV 5
Keep a copy you own, the app and its data
"A copy you own."
your world on your own drive, a copy of the guest booka private repository, a database export, a backup6 min

▶ PRESS START · LEVEL 1

What you need

An app you are building with Lovable, Bolt.new, Cursor or Claude Code. Live on the web or not; level 3 says when it matters.
A free GitHub account. Level 1 makes it if you don't have one. It is where your saves live.
About an hour, and the willingness to break your app on purpose once, with a save to go back to.

You will not read or write code. Every move is a sentence you type to your tool, and every lesson gives you the sentence.

Then you build systems: if the character is Claude Code, it reads the guide too

Claude Code is a character you can give house rules to, once, and it follows them every run: "always make a save point before a big change", "list the files before you touch them". A build you write down once and make again is called a skill, a recipe. A check that runs every time with no one pressing anything is called a hook, a farm. A portal from your world to GitHub or your database is called an MCP connection. So the five moves in this course don't have to stay in your head. Lovable, Bolt and Cursor have some of this too, in their own words. None of it is needed for the course.

The words, whenever you forget one

Every page has the WORDS button in the corner. It opens the same sheet everywhere: what developers call it, the game word and the plain word, one line each, grouped by level. Tap any word in a lesson that is on the sheet and it opens at that row.

THE FRAME
Developers say	In the game	Plain
`the developer`	the player	YouYou give the orders and check the work. The controller never changes hands.
`the agent, the assistant`	the character you give orders to	Your AI tool: Lovable, Bolt, Cursor, Claude CodeFast and tireless, and it guesses what you meant. When it guesses wrong, level 4 is the way out.
`the project`	your world	Your app: the folder of files you are buildingNot the chat and not the editor. It can be saved, copied and moved, and every move in this course keeps it safe.
`the platform defaults, rollback`	autosave	The platform’s own undoIt saves when it wants, in one slot with no name, and writes over it. Fine until the day it isn’t.
`process, developers’ habits`	the strategy guide	The five habits in this courseWhat developers do so that losing work stops happening. One per level.

LEVEL 1 · A SAVE POINT
Developers say	In the game	Plain
`a repository, on GitHub`	your save files	A copy of your app on GitHub, under your own accountIt lives outside the platform, so nothing the platform does can write over it. Every commit goes here.
`a commit`	a save	A snapshot of your app: every file as it is at one moment, with a date and a messageThe tool gives each commit a short id like a1b2c3d. Level 2 keeps each one to a single change.
`a tag`	the save’s name	A name you put on a commit, like v1-worksMany commits say “working”. The tag is the one you ask for by name, and still recognise in three weeks.
`“go back to v1-works”`	load	Go back to a commit, by its tag“Go back to v1-works” puts every file back as it was then. It brings back the app, never the data.
`rollback`	autosave	The platform’s undo buttonIts autosave: one slot, no name, written over. Not a commit, and not yours.

LEVEL 2 · READ THE CHANGE
Developers say	In the game	Plain
`the plan`	the placement ghost	The list of files a change will touch, before anything changesAsk for it, read it, then say go. A file you never asked about is the one to ask “why?” about.
`small commits`	one block per save	One change per commitThen “which change broke it” has one answer, and one commit to take out.
`a diff, in plain words`		What changed since a commit, file by fileAsk for it in plain words, with the commit each file came in with. The file name tells you where to look.
`Login.tsx, SignUp.tsx`	a file in the world folder	One page or part of your app, as a fileUsually named after what it does: Login.tsx is the login. A file name on a plan or a diff is the clue.

LEVEL 3 · TRY IT ON A COPY
Developers say	In the game	Plain
`your users`	the guests	The people who use your appThey use what you built, get stuck, and leave if it is broken. Everything you try, you try in front of them, unless there is a preview.
`publishing, going live, deploying`	opening the gates	Sending a change to the live copyOnce it is published, your users see it. The preview comes first.
`a preview, a staging environment`	practice mode, the gates closed	A second copy of your app at its own address, where nothing countsBuilt from its own line of commits, with its own test database. Every change goes here before it is published.
`production`	the gates open	The live copy of your app, the one your users are inWhatever is published here is real. Nothing here is a test.
`an environment variable`	the copy’s world settings	A setting that says which database, email service or payment provider a copy of the app usesOne line like DATABASE_URL, set per copy. It decides where a form’s data went; the green tick does not.
`the database`	the guest book	Where your app keeps what your users typedTables of rows on the platform’s servers. A commit never holds it, so going back to v1-works never touches it.

LEVEL 4 · STOP AFTER TWO TRIES
Developers say	In the game	Plain
`an attempt`	one death	One fix: your order, and everything the AI changed in answerTwo that fail is the limit. The third is a fix of the fix.
`the error message, the stack trace`	the death message	The line the tool printed when it brokeThe closest thing you have to the cause. Read it before you try again.
`reset to the save point`	load the save	Go back to v1-works after two failed attemptsThe attempts were never committed, so they go. The original problem is still there, on its own, without the two new ones.
`/clear, a new chat`	a fresh run	A new chat that has not seen the two failed attemptsIt remembers nothing, so tell it: the commit you are at, the error message, the two attempts, and “don’t repeat those”.
`the loop`	the death loop	Try, try again, worse each timeEach attempt is built on the last broken one. The way out: stop, reset, new conversation.
`a bug report`	a guest’s complaint	A user’s “it broke”, in their wordsAn error message you did not see yourself. Read it the same way, then the same three moves.

You have creative mode. You still dug straight down.

Who is playing

Autosave, or your own saves

Level select

Make a save point you can go back to

See what a change will touch before you say yes

Try every change on a copy first

Stop after two tries, reload, start fresh

Keep a copy you own, the app and its data

What you need