Home / Articles / The no-server startup / Versions / v1.2.0
The no-server startup: what changed in v1.2.0
From v1.1.0 (2026-10-20, 88bed709f) to v1.2.0 (2026-10-20, 67c1d54f0), paragraph by paragraph.
11 paragraphs added, 0 removed, 2 changed in place, 71 unchanged. About 511 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.
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Summary: This is a blueprint, for founders and for the agents that work with them, of a kind of product that a lot of what I have written here adds up to. Phase one has no server and no database of its own. The product is a folder of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, built from native web components with the few libraries it needs vendored inside it, so it runs offline and anywhere a web page can be served, from a laptop to GitHub Pages to a customer's isolated network. The user brings the expensive parts: their own AI key, capped and paid by them, called straight from the browser; their own storage, in the browser, in an encrypted vault or in their own cloud drive; and their own passkey, which can give the browser a secret that only their device can produce. You are not in the line of any request, so the product scales with its users, not with your servers. The pieces mostly exist today, OpenRouter's OAuth among them, which bills each user's requests to their own credit. The gaps are on the providers' side: a user's own key with a cap, and paying the app that brought them the customer, which none of the providers I checked offers. Then how to build it, with agent sessions, a dev and a main site and an explorer as the first hire; how to charge for it; and a checklist an agent can work through.through; and an MVP of it, an infographic studio, mostly simulated, in a vault, with a business plan for somebody to build.
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!trail no-server
9 unchanged paragraphs, under In short {#in-short}
• An MVP and a business plan, in a vault. For somebody to build.
39 unchanged paragraphs, under What this is {#what}, The principles {#principles}, A worked example: an infographic studio {#example}…
The MVP, in a vault {#mvp}
The worked example is now a working one. The no-server studio is that infographic studio, built to this blueprint and published the way this site publishes its demos: in an sgit vault you can open. It is one HTML file of seven native web components, with no framework, no build step and no server. Pick a document or paste your own, choose a layout and a theme, and the browser draws the infographic.
Most of it is simulated, on purpose, which is why a vault is the right place for it. With no model connected, a deterministic extractor stands in for the model, so every feature works, offline, and replays exactly. Inside the vault, the studio asks the vault host for a model: the host holds the AI key, caps the spend per session and asks the user before the first call, and the studio never sees the key. That is the capped key the providers are missing, at the vault layer. The flow walks all eight steps with invented money, and three synthetic users walked the studio before it was published. The tour says what is real and what is simulated.
[figure nv-studio.webp] The no-server studio in its vault: an invented bakery's quarter as a poster, drawn in the browser, in simulation mode. | screenshot
For somebody to build {#business}
I think this should be a business, and possibly three, and the studio's vault holds the plan, for somebody else to run or to run with us. The first is the studio itself: a no-server product for one segment, infographics for small businesses from their own reports and plans, where the user brings the key and the studio charges for the product. The second is a no-server product studio: a company that builds these for founders and for teams inside companies, a new product in weeks, handed over as a folder they own, with agents that maintain it. The third is the credit layer the providers are missing: capped keys for each user, and a share of the credit they buy paid to the app that brought them, which a provider, or a broker in front of providers, could build.
The plan in the vault has who it is for, packages and prices as hypotheses, go-to-market, the first ninety days, a calculator, the risks as acceptances, and the open questions. It sits with the other business plans published for founders.
The pitch is one line long: infographics from your own documents, in your browser, with your own AI credit, and nothing kept by us.
[figure nv-plan.webp] The business plan in the vault: three businesses in one blueprint, packages and prices as hypotheses, go-to-market, ninety days, a calculator, risks as acceptances and open questions. | screenshot
19 unchanged paragraphs, under For agents: the next steps {#next}, What this does not claim {#limits}
• This is a blueprint, not a product. A workingThe MVP is themostly nextsimulated. step.The studio's own key path is written, not yet run against a live key.
2 unchanged paragraphs, under Where this comes from {#sources}