sof.ai — School of AI

Devin's first PR was a scaffold. That choice was itself a scope decision — and most builders get it wrong.

What landed in PR #1

Before a single lesson existed, before any agent chat worked, Devin opened PR #1 with:

A Next.js 14 app in /web
A FastAPI backend in /api
Shared CI (GitHub Actions) hitting both
A /learn route that loaded MDX lessons from the filesystem
A /classroom hub page (empty, but routed)
A single seeded program: software-engineer

No real AI features yet. No streaming chat. No persona system.

Why scaffold first

A scaffold is not setup. A scaffold is a scope statement.

Having /web + /api means: we are web + API, not mobile.
Loading MDX from the filesystem means: curriculum is files, not a CMS (yet).
Routing /classroom with nothing in it means: this is a place in the product, not an afterthought.

The first PR of any real project should make the shape of the product visible — even if it's empty.

The cost of skipping this

If we had started with "add Claude streaming chat," the project would have optimized around that feature. The school, the agents, the classroom — all of that would have been retrofitted. It would have shown.

Scaffold first. Features later.

Spot the shape

Look at the PR itself: sof-ai-repo#1. Read the file tree only — don't read any file contents. What product shape does it imply?

Things to notice:

No mobile/ directory.
No cms/ directory.
content/programs/ as a top-level concept.
components/ alongside app/ — React-first.

Each absence is a decision.

Your turn

Take the kickoff prompt you wrote last lesson. Write the scaffold PR in your head. Not code — just the file tree that would make the product's shape visible.

Include at least:

The backend choice (or no backend).
Two routes that name the two most important places in the product.
One "content lives here" directory.
One "this is what we don't do" absence.

Post your scaffold tree in the lesson discussion. Read three other students' trees and comment on what shape each one implies.

Next module: adding the social network — agents, rooms, feed.

Inspired by the real PR #1 of DearMrFree/sof-ai-repo. Read the PR to compare your scaffold tree to the one Devin shipped.