guides
AI-Built App Pre-Launch Checklist
AI can help you ship fast. It can also confidently create broken auth, weak database rules, exposed secrets, fake payment states, and production-only failures.
This guide is the minimum guardrail pass before you invite strangers to log in, upload data, or pay.
Ship small, but do not ship blind. Before asking strangers to use or pay for an AI-built app, verify auth, data isolation, secrets, payments, and production deployment with real tests.
TL;DR
- Do not trust UI-only auth checks.
- Do not expose secret keys to the browser.
- Do not accept Stripe payment status from the client.
- Do not create Supabase tables without RLS.
- Do not invite strangers or charge money before testing signup, login, payment, webhook, and data isolation in production.
- Do not ask AI to "fix everything." Use a small debugging loop.
Who This Is For
This is for:
- Beginner solo founders
- AI app-builder users graduating from prototype to production
- Next.js, Supabase, Stripe, and Vercel projects
- Founders trying to earn their first dollar, not pass an enterprise audit
This does not cover:
- SOC 2
- HIPAA
- PCI deep compliance
- Penetration testing
- Enterprise permissions
- Regulated medical, financial, legal, or child-focused products
This checklist helps avoid common AI-built app mistakes. It does not make your app professionally secure or compliant. If your app handles regulated, sensitive, or high-risk data, get professional review before launch.
The First-Dollar Safety Standard
Before launch, your app must safely handle:
- One real user signing up.
- One user seeing only their own data.
- One Stripe checkout.
- One webhook updating the database.
- One failed payment or canceled checkout.
- One production deploy with correct environment variables.
If any of those fail, do not launch paid access yet.
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