It makes you understand how your codebase is built — after you build it.
You built something with AI. It works — you just don’t fully understand what you have. Codebase 101 reads your repo and walks you through it in a short guided tour: what each part is, why it matters, and what to learn next.
You’re not struggling to learn. You’re accepting what it’s giving you, straight into your brain.
From “I built it but I don’t get it” to “I understand my own code.”
Vibe coding gets you a working app. It doesn’t get you the understanding — and without that, every bug is scary and every new feature is a guess. Codebase 101 closes exactly that gap.
- You’re not sure which file does what
- A small bug means an hour of poking around
- New features feel risky, so you avoid them
- You can’t explain how your own app works
- You know the shape and every load-bearing part
- A bug has an obvious place to look
- You add features on purpose, not by luck
- You have a clear next thing to learn
Maya shipped an app with AI. Then she opened it and didn’t recognize it.
An illustrative portrait of the vibe coder Codebase 101 is built for — a real product situation, not a real customer.
Next.js + Supabase) that a handful of people actually use.- Can’t say how the login actually works
- Every bug is an hour of guessing
- Scared to add a feature in case it breaks
- The front door · how it knows it’s her · where her data lives
- The reminder that runs on its own, without her
- A first feature added on purpose, not by luck
Maya and PlantPal are the worked example the whole tour is built around — a realistic small app, so the tour’s craft is concrete. They are not a real customer, and no outcome here is a testimonial.
A short guided tour of your repo — about 8 steps, ~6 minutes.
Paste a public repo. Codebase 101 reads it and builds a tour of what you actually have. Each step shows a real part of your code, tells you why it matters, and points at what to learn next. It teaches at your pace — you don’t drive, you absorb.
Built for the vibe coder — and anyone facing code they didn’t write.
If you have a repo in front of you that you don’t fully understand, this is for you.
The vibe coder
You built (or are building) something with AI and shipped it — but you don’t yet understand what you have. Codebase 101 makes that comprehension happen, so the thing you made becomes a thing you actually know.
Joining a team
New engineer, new codebase, week one. Instead of reading 400 files cold, take the tour and get the shape and the load-bearing parts first.
Onboarding yourself
Coming back to your own project after months away, or inheriting a side project. Get re-oriented fast, at your own pace.
Reading unfamiliar code
A senior sizing up a repo they didn’t write — an acquisition, an audit, an open-source dependency. The tour gets you to the map in minutes.
01Understand the code you just shipped — the killer use case — leads in the animated hero above and the vibe-coder card. Below: the next scenarios, each walked through the real tour routes — same flow, different repo.
# the shape it found their-repo/ ├─ app/ # front door └─ lib/ # auth
-- schema.sql alter table plants enable row level security;
// app/page.tsx export default Home() // route "/"
Each mini-screen recreates the real screen it names in the live app — the repo-intake field, the tour’s code-and-explanation split, the dashboard, and the tour-complete screen. All five scenarios walk the same tour — only the repo differs. No proof numbers: the tour only ever tells you what it saw.
Also — grouped- 05 Size up a repo you inheritedA consultant or senior inheriting a client’s repo gets to the few concepts they need to grok before shipping their first change. Walk the tour →
One canonical example — and the repo shapes it adapts to.
Codebase 101 has no customer tours to show yet. This is the illustrative worked example the whole product is built around, plus the kinds of repo it reads.
Next.js + Supabase app, toured in 8 steps: the map · the front door · how it knows it’s you · where your data lives · the reminder that runs without you · the pieces on screen · the plumbing · keeping it alive. Fully clickable.
Open the tour →
A web app
A Next.js / React front end with a Supabase or Postgres backend — the classic vibe-coded SaaS or side project.
An API or service
A Python / Node service — routes, a data layer, background jobs, the deploy that keeps it up.
A script or tool
A smaller repo — a CLI, a bot, an automation — where the tour is shorter but the shape still gets named.
These archetypes show the kinds of repo the tour reads; they are illustrative. A real tour is generated by the engine from your repo — it is never a pre-written script, and it renders only what it actually saw.
Pick up where you left off — and teach it your way.
The tour is the lesson; the dashboard is your control room. Three jobs, one place.
Resume
Know your current step and jump straight back in. Leave any time; come back exactly where you were.
The whole picture
See the full path at a glance — what’s done, where you are, and what’s left — so you always know how far you’ve come.
How it teaches you
Four dials, so the tour meets you where you are. Change any one and it takes effect on your next step.
It teaches you your codebase. It doesn’t wait for questions.
You can already ask an AI about your code. The problem is you don’t know what to ask — that’s the whole reason you don’t understand it yet. A guided tour decides the path for you and walks it.
Asking a chatbot
Great when you already know the question- You have to know what to ask
- Answers are scattered, one at a time
- No path — you might miss the load-bearing parts
- You’re still driving; it’s still work
The Codebase 101 tour
Great when you don’t know where to start- It picks the path through your repo
- One coherent walk, in order, that builds
- It covers the parts that actually matter
- You absorb; it does the driving
Need to interrogate a specific line? That’s what Claude Code is for. Codebase 101 is the part that gets you to understanding in the first place.
Read-only, no card, honest about what it saw.
Codebase 101 is a real, early build. Here’s the honest grain.
Paste a repo. In six minutes, understand it.
It works either way — but understanding what you built changes how you build next.
Understand the code you just built.
A short guided tour of your repo — what each part is, why it matters, and what to learn next. It teaches; you absorb.