How to write a good initial project description

Creating an app with Pythagora begins with a detailed project description that outlines the foundation for breaking development into manageable tasks. This initial step is crucial for providing a comprehensive overview that guides the LLM through the app creation process.

A good project description significantly eases the development process, enabling Pythagora to efficiently build your app from start to finish. Conversely, a poorly written description can lead to a complete yet inefficiently developed application, complicating the creation of individual features and prolonging development time.

Pro Tip: Pythagora Pro users can ask Pythagora Chat to review their initial project description and provide feedback.

Guidelines for Writing a Project Description

• Focus on MVP - Describe the Minimum Viable Product, which are the essential set of features needed to launch your app. This helps define a clear starting point and facilitates iterative enhancements and feature additions after the initial development phase.

• Detail the High-Level Overview - Begin with a broad overview of the app’s purpose and core functionality, then detail specific features.

• External Integrations - If your app requires connections to non-public APIs or databases, include detailed access and usage instructions.

Other Things to Consider

Here are some considerations to help you flesh out your Pythagora application's initial project description:

• Hosting - Decide whether your application will be self-hosted and run locally, or if it will be deployed to a public cloud service such as Render, Fly.io, AWS, etc.

• Database - Specify whether the database will be local (e.g., MongoDB running on your own server) or hosted (e.g., using MongoDB Atlas in the cloud). Outline any specific database schemas or initial data setups needed at the project's outset.

• Authentication - Will your application require user authentication? Specify whether it should support a single user (as in a personal app) or multiple users (as in a service or community app).

• Documentation - Consider having Pythagora include detailed documentation in the project's README file. Suggested contents for the README include:

  • A clear description of the technologies used.
  • Instructions on how to run the application locally.
  • A comprehensive list of the app’s features.
  • Descriptions of any API endpoints created, including parameters and expected responses.
  • Example CURL commands or other methods to access the API for testing or integration purposes.

Examples

Next, read this article to see some initial project description examples