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The no-server startup: what changed in v1.1.0
From v1.0.0 (2026-10-20, 9f07c8f54) to v1.1.0 (2026-10-20, this release), paragraph by paragraph.
0 paragraphs added, 0 removed, 2 changed in place, 71 unchanged. About 38 words added and 0 removed. Insertions are marked like this, deletions like this; unchanged runs are folded to one line; figures appear as their file names.
17 unchanged paragraphs, under In short {#in-short}, What this is {#what}, The principles {#principles}
1. No server and no database of yours. There is a CRM and an email list somewhere, but the product itself has no backend. Everything it does, it does in the user's browser.
2. HTML, CSS and JavaScript, as native web components. No JavaScript framework for components, no build step. The browser is the runtime. The conventions are written down at coding.sgit.ai: a component is three files, behaviour, markup and styles, with one URL per version. What the code must also be, version controlled, reliable, resilient, secure, backed up, consistent, explainable and documented, is at nfrs.sgit.ai, the non-functional requirements.
3. Do not reinvent the wheel; vendor it. If you need Mermaid for diagrams, or a library for charts, use it, at a pinned version, copied into the product's vendor/ folder. Nothing is fetched from a CDN at run time.
4. It runs offline, and anywhere. From a file on a laptop, a simple local server, a container, a Lambda or Cloud Function that returns files, Cloudflare, any cloud, or a customer's isolated network. If something can serve a web page, it can run the product.
5. The user brings the compute. The expensive part, the AI model, is paid for by the user, through a key that is theirs, ideally capped, and called from their browser.
6. The user's data stays with the user. In the browser's storage, in an encrypted vault, or in their own cloud drive. You never hold it, so you never have to protect it.
7. The passkey is the identity. A passkey can give the browser a secret that only the user's device can produce, and from it the keys to their data, with nothing to remember and nothing to sign up for.
8. You are not in the line. No request passes through you. The product scales with its users, not with your servers, and an outage of yours does not stop anyone.
9. Everything is in version control, and agents maintain it. A dev site and a main site, every change a commit, every release a note.note, held to the non-functional requirements from the first release.
10. Charge for value, not for servers. For building it, for its users, and for the keys, even when the user brings their own.
54 unchanged paragraphs, under A worked example: an infographic studio {#example}, The gaps today {#gaps}, The stack {#stack}…
A voice memo of 20 October 2026, with the provider facts checked against their documentation that day. The conventions for components are from coding.sgit.ai.coding.sgit.ai, and the non-functional requirements from nfrs.sgit.ai. The pieces are from earlier articles here: the passkey opens the vault, free models with your own key, the code you do not ship, Cloudflare as Lego blocks, explorer coding, your own newsroom, paying after the value and the vault crosses Chrome profiles. Simon Wardley, on pioneers, settlers and town planners, 2015. Written up and checked by this site's agent, newsroom.writer; the editorial responsibility is mine.