Module 4 · Ship it: deploy, monitor, hand over Lesson 12 of 15
The README that gets you shortlisted
Most reviewers never run your code. They read the README and skim the history, so write the README for someone with ninety seconds and no patience.
The concept
Your README is the page a recruiter reads when the link works. Five sections, in this order: what the app does in two lines, a screenshot, the tech used, how to run it locally, and the live URL. A reader should get the point in fifteen seconds without scrolling.
Add the two paragraphs that actually differentiate you: one problem you hit and how you solved it, and one decision you would make differently now. Nobody expects a fresher to have built something flawless; everybody notices the candidate who can explain their own trade-offs.
Common mistakes
The mistake is a README that lists technologies and nothing else — "React, Node, MongoDB" tells a reviewer which tools you touched and nothing about whether you can build. The same three lines of prose, applied to every project you have, is what turns a student repo into a portfolio.
Worked example
Screenshots, a one-line description, the live link, the stack, the three hardest problems you solved, and the setup steps — in that order.
Your practice task
Write the README for your deployed project and get one honest person to follow only its steps on a clean machine.
Do this before moving on. Reading a solution teaches the shape of it; typing it teaches you.
Key takeaway
Your README is the page a recruiter reads when the link works.
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Finish every lesson to unlock the certificate. Each one ends in a practice task — do them and the final project brief writes itself.