Module 2 · Where tools live: saving, hosting & staying safe
Vercel in plain English
Vercel is free hosting: it puts a tool on a real web address that others can open — for free, on the same infrastructure professional websites run on. It’s the answer to “how do I get this online?”
What Vercel is
Where GitHub keeps a private copy of your work, Vercel takes a tool and publishes it to a web address anyone with the link can open — from a laptop, a phone, anywhere. The free plan is genuinely free and more than enough for the kind of tools you’ll build. No credit card, no server to manage.
GitHub — the safe
- A private copy of your work
- Nobody but you sees it
- Every version kept
Vercel — the stage
- Publishes to a real web address
- For tools others open
- Free plan, no credit card
When you’d use it
- Your whole team opens the same tool. A shared quote calculator or checklist that people reach from their own phones needs to be online — Vercel is how.
- Customers use it. A booking page, a quote form, a simple calculator embedded on your website — anything a customer touches lives on the internet, and Vercel hosts it for free.
When you wouldn’t
Keep anything with private client data on your computer. A tool full of client names, notes, or numbers has no business being on a public web address. If a private tool ever does need to be online for your team, don’t just publish it — wait until you’re ready to put a password on the page first.
Password-protecting a page so only your team can open it is just another thing you can ask Claude to build. When the day comes, you won’t need a new skill — you’ll describe what you want, the same way you build everything else in this course.
For now, relax: none of the three tools you’re about to build need Vercel at all. They all live on your computer. This lesson is here so that the day you build a fourth tool your team wants on their phones, you know exactly what to do.
How you’d do it
When that day comes, it’s one request. Open Claude Code in the tool’s folder and paste:
Copy this prompt
Put this tool online with Vercel on the free plan. Walk me through creating the account and any login steps one at a time.
Like GitHub, Vercel’s sign-up may open a browser window or ask you to connect your GitHub account — that’s expected. The prompt tells Claude to guide you one step at a time; if anything’s unclear, paste what you see back to Claude and ask it to explain.
You know the two homes cold: private backup goes to GitHub, and the rare tool that others need goes online with Vercel — free either way. And you know that none of this course’s builds require Vercel, so there’s nothing to set up today.
Watch this step
If you'll be putting a tool online, this walkthrough shows the whole free Vercel deploy on screen — the single mechanic behind this lesson. It’s from an independent creator — credited below, so go give them a follow.
How To Deploy GitHub Project on Vercel (Step By Step)
More learning resources
Still want another angle? These are hand-picked and vetted to line up with this lesson — from creators and sites worth your time.