Project file 01 / Learning platform

The Real Repo

Currently building · In development

Learn how real software teams work, then get hired at a simulated company and do the job with an AI team until you're promoted.

Visit website

Next.js
React
TypeScript
Neon
Resend
Gitea

Overview

The Real Repo prepares developers for their first real job. It starts with short, free lessons on how software teams actually work, posted as videos on YouTube, Instagram, X and LinkedIn. The product goes further: you apply for a role at one of four simulated companies, from a startup to an enterprise airline, and work there in the browser with AI teammates who hand out tickets, review your code and change the plan mid-sprint. Doing the job well gets you promoted. The website, the lessons and the waitlist are live, and the product is being built now.

What I'm building

A laptop in the browser

Getting hired gets you a company laptop: a web desktop that works like a Mac, with a lock screen, a dock, a menu bar, a launcher, notifications and windows you can drag, resize, tile and minimise. Bigger companies lock it down further, with 2FA, SSO and access requests.

The company's own tools

Each tool is its own product with its own name, design and logo: Natter for chat, Docket for tickets, Sundial for the calendar, Pigeon for mail, Roster for HR and Vellum for design. They follow the layouts and shortcuts people know from Slack, Linear, Google Calendar, Gmail, Workday and Figma, and they tell one story, so the ticket a teammate mentions in chat is the same one in the tracker.

Real code, real reviews

You write code in VS Code in the browser, push it to the company's own GitHub-style code host and open a pull request that an AI tech lead reviews before it merges. The company's AI assistant is there with a monthly budget, but you have to explain what you ship.

Four companies, four ways of working

Streak (a habit-tracker startup), Forkful (food delivery), Hollis Health (an online pharmacy) and Arden Airways (an airline) each work differently, from deploying to production yourself at Streak to change windows and approvals at Arden Airways.

Intended workflow

Learn how software teams work from the free lessons, then join the waitlist.
Apply for a role at a simulated company and unlock your laptop on day one.
Pick up tickets, open pull requests, ship releases and handle incidents with your AI teammates until you're promoted.

Behind the build

A window manager of its own

The desktop is a Next.js app with its own window manager: dragging, resizing from any edge, tiling to halves and quarters, a genie effect into the dock built with the Web Animations API, an app switcher and a launcher that searches apps, tickets, files, pull requests and people. Any app can open another at a specific ticket, thread or pull request.

Real tools where they matter

The Code app is the real VS Code, served by code-server. The Repos app is my own GitHub-style interface reading and writing a Gitea server through its API, so branches, commits and pull requests are real git. The Browser app embeds Chrome's own DevTools, so students can inspect what they build.

From waitlist to workspace

The website is a Next.js site on Vercel. Its waitlist saves sign-ups to Neon Postgres and sends a welcome email through Resend. Next comes the front door: signing up, applying for a role and getting a workspace of your own.