Bringing Your Prototype Home¶
Your Chat Prototype Isn't Throwaway Work¶
You built something real in Run 1 — an Avalanche Field Guide with danger ratings, weather guidance, and gear recommendations. That work doesn't have to disappear just because you're moving to a new environment. It's your starting point.
Think of it like drafting a document in an email and then moving it into a shared folder so your team can work on it together. The writing doesn't change — you're just putting it somewhere better.
That's what you're about to do: take the prototype you built in chat and bring it into your project in Coder. Once it's there, your AI coding assistant can read it, edit specific parts, and help you build on it — all the things that weren't possible in chat.
A quick note about the future: You don't always have to start in chat and then move to an AI coding assistant. Going forward, you can start from a blank slate directly in your AI coding assistant — no chat step needed. We started you in chat for Run 1 because it's a more familiar, less technical environment to get comfortable in. Now that you've made the transition, your AI coding assistant is where you'll start from here on out.
Try It: Migrate Your Prototype¶
Format: Mob Session Time: ~10 minutes Setup: Gather around the computer that your team used to build the Avalanche Field Guide in Run 1 — that's where your prototype lives. One person drives (types), everyone else navigates (watches and suggests). Rotate the driver if you like.
You're going to copy your Field Guide prototype from chat and bring it into your project. Here's how:
Step 1 — Copy your prototype from chat
On this computer, go back to the chat tool where you built your Avalanche Field Guide in Run 1. Find your prototype and copy the code behind it.
Open your Field Guide artifact. Look for the menu icon (three dots) in the top right corner. Click it and choose Copy. That copies all the code behind your prototype.
Open your Field Guide artifact. Switch from the preview to the code view — you'll see a toggle for this in the upper right. Once you're in code view, a copy button appears near the top right. Click it to copy the code.
Step 2 — Hand it to your AI coding assistant
Open your AI coding assistant in the Coder Terminal and paste the code in with a prompt like:
This project has a web application set up but the application itself is empty. Here's a prototype I built in another tool. Please build it out properly into the web application so I can see it in a browser.
Then paste the code right after your prompt.
Your AI assistant will read the existing project structure, understand how the web application is set up, and build your prototype into it — working with the framework that's already there rather than starting from scratch.
If copy-paste doesn't work: Sometimes chat tools make it hard to grab the code, or the paste is too large for the terminal. If that happens, don't worry — there's a backup plan. Instead of pasting code, use the user story skills you learned in Lift 1 to have your AI assistant rebuild it. Give it these stories:
This project has a web application set up but the application itself is empty. Build me an Avalanche Field Guide for the Wasatch Range into this web application based on these user stories:
As a backcountry skier, I want to see a danger scale from 1 to 5 with color coding so that I can quickly assess today's risk level at a glance. (use mock data)
As a backcountry skier, I want to see a summary of current weather and snowpack conditions so that I can decide whether it's safe to go out. (use mock data)
As a backcountry skier, I want a gear checklist for a backcountry trip so that I don't forget essential safety equipment.
It won't be identical to your chat version, but it gives you a working starting point built into the existing web application — and you just practiced writing user stories in a real project.
Step 3 — See it running
Whether you pasted your code or rebuilt it from user stories, ask your AI assistant:
How do I view my project in a browser?
It will help you open your Field Guide — now running from a real file in your project, not inside a chat window.
Step 4 — Save and sync
You know the drill:
Save my progress and sync it.
Team Activity: What's Real, What's Fake?¶
Format: Mob Session Time: ~5 minutes Setup: Gather around one screen. Everyone should have their prototype migrated (or recreated) first.
Now that your Field Guide lives in your project, ask your AI coding assistant:
Read through my Avalanche Field Guide and tell me: which parts show real, live data, and which parts are using hardcoded or made-up information? List them out.
Look at what it tells you. The danger ratings? Made up. The weather conditions? Invented. The gear list? Probably static text.
Discuss: Look at the two user stories your team wrote in the last section. Which pieces of made-up data would those stories replace with real data? That's your roadmap for Run 2.
Key Insight¶
Your chat prototype is a head start, not a throwaway. Bringing it into your project means you don't start from zero — you start from something that already works and make it better. And now that your AI coding assistant can read the actual files, it can tell you exactly what's real and what's hardcoded — which is exactly what you need to know before you start connecting to live data in Run 2.