Choose your tools
🏠The everyday picture
With the house plan agreed, the architect chooses materials: brick or concrete, wood or steel. Not because one is "best", but because the plan, the climate and the budget point to one. Your one-page plan does the same for your app's tools.
📘What it really is
Choosing tools means deciding four things, using your one-page plan:
- Frontend (what people see): plain HTML/CSS, WordPress, or a framework like React.
- Backend (the server-side logic): none for a simple site; Node.js or Python for apps with logins and data; PHP if you use WordPress.
- Database (where records live): none, SQLite for small or single-user tools, PostgreSQL for many users.
- Hosting (where it runs): shared hosting, an app platform, a VPS or the cloud.
The Choosing Your Tools course explains each comparison in depth. This lesson turns it into decisions.
📝A worked example
For the tutor-booking app from Lesson 1:
| Plan says | So we choose | Because |
|---|---|---|
| Two kinds of users with logins | A backend: Node.js with TypeScript | Logins and rules must run on a server, never only in the browser |
| Profiles and bookings, many users at once | PostgreSQL (managed, e.g. Supabase) | Many people writing at once; permissions; backups handled for us |
| Phone numbers hidden until accepted | Rules enforced in the backend and database | The browser can't be trusted to hide data |
| Works on phones, no app store | A responsive website with React | One codebase for every device |
| ₹1,000/month, one person looking after it | An app platform or a small VPS | Low cost; app platforms need the least maintenance |
| Popular tools only | All of the above are widely used | AI writes better code, and help is easy to find |
💡What it means for your idea
Write your choices into your one-page plan under a new heading: Tools. From now on, every request to the AI starts with the plan and the tools, so it doesn't quietly switch to something else halfway through.
✍️Practise: choose your stack
For your own idea, fill in the four choices (frontend, backend, database, hosting) with one reason each, taken from your plan. Then ask an AI:
Here is my one-page plan and my chosen tools. Don't write code.
Is any choice a poor fit for the plan? Answer only with real problems,
not personal preferences, and explain each in plain words.
🧭Pick this when...
Choose the most popular, well-documented option that meets the plan. Change only when a real requirement forces you to.
✅Quick check
*Your plan is a five-page website for a law office with a contact form. Do you need a database and a Node.js
Show the answer
backend?* Probably not. A static site or WordPress on shared hosting is enough; the form can use the host's form or email service.
An AI says "let's use MongoDB instead, it's more modern". Your plan needs bookings with strict rules. What do you ask? Ask what real problem in your plan it solves. Bookings with relationships and rules fit a relational database like PostgreSQL; "more modern" isn't a requirement.
📚 Next in the Builder Path: Lesson 3, Set up your workstation.