A7 · chapter overview
The Portal exemplar
Every Part taught one move on a worked fragment. A7 runs the whole loop — decompose, roadmap, spec, brief, build, harden, accept — end to end on the Portal, zero to production.
This is the capstone: the single uninterrupted run that proves the moves compose into a shipped, multi-surface system, from an empty repository to a deployed Portal. A7 is worth running only because every rung it ships was first made production-grade by the spec layer and the reliability work above it — a zero-to-production exemplar cannot run on an increment that only passes the happy path. The arc below re-centres the course on A7, and a second figure walks the seven steps A7.01–A7.07.
Where we are
The course is one argument carried across eight Parts. The first seven are built: A0 framed the method, A1 made the case for thin, provable slices, A2 turned a vision into a backlog, A3 planned its delivery, A4 defined and proved each rung, A5 briefed an agent to build it, and A6 hardened the result to production quality. A7 is where every prior Part composes into one run.
The arc below walks the eight Parts. Select one and the readout reports its title, what it delivers, and whether it is built — the same orientation this landing exists to give. The default selection is A7, the Part you are reading.
The course arc — eight parts, A0 to A7
A0–A6 each taught one move; A7 runs them all as one loop on the Portal — zero to production.
The whole loop, in seven steps
A7 is one uninterrupted run of the workflow, carried over seven steps from an empty repository to a deployed Portal. Each step runs a technique a prior chapter taught: A7.01 decomposes the vision (A2), A7.02 plans the delivery (A3), A7.03 specifies the rung (A4), A7.04 briefs the Author and A7.05 builds the increment (A5), A7.06 hardens it to production quality (A6), and A7.07 accepts and ships — closing the loop.
Select a step below and the readout reports its phase and the prior chapter whose technique it runs. The figure names the sequence at the roadmap's altitude; the step's internals are deferred to the chapter's triad, not invented here.
The whole loop · pick a step
The principle
A method is proven not by separate lessons but by one whole run that ships a real system. The moves must compose, in sequence, from nothing to production.
On the Portal
A7 runs the loop once on the Portal — the branded store, the event-sourced engine behind one facade, the Phoenix web app, the Telegram bot, and the student dashboard come up in dependency order, each rung shipped to production quality before the next.
The exemplar is the course's method demonstrated in full, from an empty repository to a deployed Portal.
Orientation dives
Three short dives orient you before the chapter's steps. Read them in order: why an end-to-end exemplar earns its own Part, what the seven steps cover, and how the loop runs once on the Portal.
Why an exemplar
A sequence of hardened rungs is not a demonstrated method; the method is the whole loop run once, end to end.
What it covers
The seven steps A7.01–A7.07 as the zero-to-production arc, grouped into three releasable milestones.
How it runs
The Author/Operator loop run once on the Portal — one production-grade rung shipped at a time, in order.
The chapter ahead: the seven steps A7.01–A7.07
A7 carries the whole loop over seven steps, from an empty repository to a deployed Portal. Named at the roadmap's altitude, they are the zero-to-production arc: decompose the vision, plan the delivery, specify the rung, brief the Author, build the increment, harden it to production, and accept and ship. The first six each run a technique a prior chapter taught; the seventh closes the loop.
STATUS: PASS; shipped to production, closing the loop.A7's steps will be detailed when its triad (a7.{md,stories.md,llms.md})
is seeded. The chapter, per the course roadmap, runs the whole Author/Operator loop end to end on the Portal
— zero to production — across the seven steps A7.01–A7.07. The step internals named above are
the sequence at roadmap altitude, not the per-step acceptance criteria that the triad will carry. Start with the
orientation dive Why an exemplar.
References
The sources this chapter draws on for running the whole system end to end, keeping it releasable at every increment, and the inspect-and-adapt loop run whole — and where the prior layers A7 composes are taught in the course.
Sources
- Hunt, A. & Thomas, D. — The Pragmatic Programmer — tracer bullets and the walking skeleton: the whole system running end to end before the backlog fills in.
- Humble, J. & Farley, D. — Continuous Delivery — releasable at every increment; production as the bar A7 runs to.
- Beck, K. — Extreme Programming Explained — the inspect-and-adapt loop run whole, not as separate ceremonies.
Related in this course
- A2 · Decomposition — the technique A7.01 runs.
- A3 · The roadmap layer — the technique A7.02 runs.
- A4 · The spec layer — the technique A7.03 runs.
- A7 · Why an exemplar — the reverse-verification dive.
- A7 · What it covers — the seven-step arc.
- A7 · How it runs — the loop run once on the Portal.
- Companion · Phoenix (F6) — the Portal's real web chapter, built end to end.
- Companion · Functional Programming in Elixir — the Portal's Elixir and OTP foundations.