AI makes it easy to build exactly the learning app that is needed right now. Mostly it stays where it was made. lernapps.net turns these one-offs into a change for many: easy to find, free to use and built so that no one has to worry.
For engineers and tech leads who work on the platform or want to understand it before they read its two models. The platform design says who takes part and what they give each other; the architecture says how the system is built.
The platform exists for these people. The journeys below are told from their views, so knowing them tells you whose problem a part solves.
Adopting adultsAdults who come across apps built by others, browse them and bring them to their students or their own children: teachers and parents.
App creatorsEngaged people who build small educational apps, typically with AI tools, for a gap they noticed themselves.Brings: the AI assistant a creator already has or can easily get, and builds and lists an app with; it reads the guidance and runs the CLI.
StudentsThe learners the apps are built for.
AI assistantsThe tools creators build their apps with.
The parts and where they live
The platform is built from one building block per repository of the organisation, each with a job of its own. This page calls them parts. Below is the site map: where you find each part and the job it does. The journeys and flows below name these parts, so this is the list to come back to.
CatalogLets adults and students find, trust and start apps, and lets creators list them; it is the core of the platform.Address: lernapps.net/appsRepository: lernapps/apps
ToolingGives a creator's AI assistant everything it needs to build an app that meets the platform's rules: the guidance by phase and the skills, the CLI that creates an app and checks it, and the workflows an app's repository runs.Address: lernapps.net/toolingRepository: lernapps/tooling
App templatesProvides the three kinds of app, quiz, explainer and interactive app, as templates and runtimes that already keep the platform's rules.No page of its own; it lives in its repository.Repository: lernapps/app-templates
PracticeTurns content that a creator's assistant wrote for an acute occasion into a temporary app for a child or a class, and guides that assistant.Address: lernapps.net/practiceRepository: lernapps/practice
DocsHolds the models of the platform: why it exists, who carries it and how the system is built.Address: lernapps.net/docsRepository: lernapps/docs
OrganisationHolds the rules and decisions that every repository of the platform follows: the profile, the governance, the templates for issues and pull requests, and the decision issues.No page of its own; it lives in its repository.Repository: lernapps/.github
The journeys
This is why the parts exist: each journey shows a person with a problem and the parts that help them solve it. Adults in an acute moment and creators each have their journey: teachers who have to take over a class at short notice, parents who notice that their child struggles with something they cannot help with, and creators, because supply does not come by itself.
How to read a journey
A journey is a sequence of steps people take. Where the platform helps with a step, it offers a service, and a part of the system provides it through one of its interfaces: the pages, links, templates or commands people actually use. Below each journey, a diagram shows how the parts work together behind it; every arrow carries the order to the part it points at.
For example: in the step "Find an app for a topic and grade", the platform offers the service "Finding apps by topic and grade", which the interface "Catalog pages" of the part "Catalog" provides.
A dashed block marks where a part does not yet deliver what the journey needs, and says what is missing; where that leaves a step to a person, the risk it carries is named.
The journey of a teacher who has to take over a class at short notice, for a colleague and perhaps outside their own subject: find an app for this topic and grade, see at a glance that it may be used, put it on the projector or the class's devices, and say thanks afterwards. It may be used because the platform lists only apps that pass its checks of fitness for use and serves each one itself, under lernapps.net and its privacy notice.
Mainly for adopting adults; also involves app creators, students. What they get: The right active-learning app for this topic and grade, even outside your subject, running in class within minutes, safe to use without checking it yourself.
Find an app for a topic and grade
Finding apps by topic and grade
For adopting adults: Helps adults find a fitting app in one place.
Delivered by: Catalog pages (Catalog).
Confirm an app may be used
Clarity on fitness for use
For adopting adults: Answers whether an app may be used, before an adult passes it on to a learner: it sends nothing to third parties, accesses only its own data in the browser and needs no installation or sign-up.
Delivered by: Catalog pages (Catalog), Home pages (Website), Listing (Catalog).
Bring an app to students
Starting an app right away
For students: Students open an app an adult brought to them and start right away, without installation or sign-up: a link or QR code is enough.
Delivered by: Served apps (Catalog).
Use an app in class
Happens inside the app, without the platform.
Thank the creator · Give feedback from classroom use
Giving feedback and thanks
For adopting adults, students: Makes it easy for adults and students to give feedback, recommendations and thanks, without accounts and without identifying students. It explains, without being pushy, that a thank-you is what keeps the free platform alive.
Not yet: Thanks (Catalog): A click opens a prepared e-mail from the sender's own account; thanks and feedback arrive, but they are neither anonymous nor counted, and recommendations are not recorded.
The journey of a parent who notices that their child struggles with a topic and cannot help, for lack of time or because they do not know the subject well enough: find an app that helps the child understand that topic, with no scope set from outside, let the child start right away and practise, and say thanks afterwards. The child keeps coming back to the app, or finds the next one alone, for as long as it needs; the child may also be the one who notices the gap. The app starts from lernapps.net like every listed app, so parents do not have to judge a stranger's address.
Mainly for adopting adults; also involves students, app creators. What they get: When your child struggles with a topic: an app that helps them understand it, to start right away and come back to as long as they need.
As in the journey “An app in class within minutes”: Find an app for a topic and grade · Confirm an app may be used · Bring an app to students.
Learn with an app
Happens inside the app, without the platform.
Return to an app
Finding apps for a topic one struggles with
For students: Helps students return to apps and find new ones on their own, for the topic they struggle with.
Delivered by: Catalog pages (Catalog).
As in the journey “An app in class within minutes”: Thank the creator.
The journey of the supply side: a creator who built an app for their own class with their AI assistant lists it with almost no effort and then hears whether and how it helped elsewhere. Creators do not start for the reach, but use and praise keep them going. The thanks they receive come from the one click every user is asked for. The platform serves a copy of the app under lernapps.net, so the creator stays the author but no longer answers to schools for data protection; in return the app needs a licence that allows the copy.
Mainly for app creators; also involves AI assistants, adopting adults. What they get: Build your app faster with good guidance, list it in minutes without answering to schools for data protection yourself, and hear with every thank-you when it helped a class beyond your own.
Build an app with an AI assistant
Guidance for building apps
For app creators: Helps creators build apps with their AI assistant that are easy to use and fit the platform. Creators get it even if nobody else uses their app. It makes building with the assistant easier.
Delivered by: Archetypes (App templates), Guidance (Tooling), Home pages (Website), Practice guidance (Practice), Tooling CLI (Tooling).
List an app
Help to list an app
For app creators: The first listing is the biggest hurdle for creators; this service takes the effort out of it.
Not yet: Listing (Catalog): A listing is published only after the platform owner approves the pull request, and the review agent runs only at their request.
What app creators get back from the other journeys: one use of the app in a class; a thank-you to the creator; structured feedback from one class; a recommendation credited to the creator.
Insight into use and feedback
For app creators: Shows creators whether and how their app is used, with feedback and thanks. Seeing this is what keeps creators building.
Not yet: Site frame (Website): Only visits to an app's page in the catalog are counted, not the use of the app itself, and only the platform owner sees the totals.
Not yet: Thanks (Catalog): Thanks reach the creator only if the platform owner passes them on.
The journey of a creator for whom an occasion sets exactly what to practise and no app covers it, such as a parent before their child's test, a student before their own test, or a teacher who needs exercises for a substitute lesson. It often follows “Understand a topic at one's own pace”, when a test comes up and the general app does not cover its material. The photos of school material go to the assistant only. What proved itself continues as in “List an app and hear it is used”.
Mainly for app creators; also involves AI assistants, adopting adults, students. What they get: When a test, a substitute lesson or missed lessons set exactly what to practise and no app covers it: your assistant makes one from that material, ready within minutes.
As in the journey “An app in class within minutes”: Find an app for a topic and grade.
As in the journey “List an app and hear it is used”: Build an app with an AI assistant.
Hand over a made-to-measure app
A temporary app made to measure
For app creators: Turns the content a creator's assistant wrote for an acute occasion into an app the learners open at once, and tells the assistant what to correct.
Delivered by: Submission form (Practice).
Not yet: Preview pages (Practice): How a kept solution becomes an entry of the catalog, with its metadata, is not defined.
As in the journey “Understand a topic at one's own pace”: Learn with an app.
Behind this journey: how the parts work together
How lernapps.net helps build and maintain an app
The creator's journey shows that creators build with an AI assistant of their own. This is what the platform gives that assistant and the app's repository to work with. Read this if you build an app or change how the platform supports building.
Home pages: The home page, the privacy notice and the imprint, and the root llms.txt that leads AI assistants to the other parts of the platform. The privacy notice is part of the signal that an app may be used: it covers every app served under lernapps.net. Used by: Creator's AI assistant.
Listing: How a creator, through their AI assistant, lists an app: an entry by pull request, checked automatically (what the app sends to third parties and keeps in the browser, whether its links and topics hold, and that its licence allows the copy) and by a review agent, an AI that checks the app against a checklist, with the result as a comment on the pull request. Once the checks pass, the copy is published; no person has to act. What still waits on the platform owner is recorded as a gap of this interface, with the risk it carries. Used by: Creator's AI assistant.
App actions: The reusable workflows and actions an app's repository runs to check and build the app and to publish the creator's own release, at the creator's address. Used by: Creators' app repositories.
Guidance: The guidance by phase, the skills and the documentation that AI assistants read to build and list an app. Used by: Creator's AI assistant.
Tooling CLI: The command line an assistant and the workflows run: create an app from an archetype, check it against the rules, update it. Used by: Creator's AI assistant, Creators' app repositories, Catalog, Practice.
The creator releases a new version. The catalog builds a copy from that release and replaces the served copy; the address stays the same and never stops working.
When the site frame, the tooling or the app templates change, the platform passes the change on to every repository that uses them, the creators' apps included: Renovate, an update service, opens a pull request in each one, and it is merged when the checks pass. Every change of the guidance has been measured by the evals before it is passed on.
A change is merged to a site's main line: the website, the catalog, the docs or the tooling's pages; the diagram shows the docs as the example. The tooling's site actions build the site, run site-check from the site frame on the built pages, and deploy them to GitHub Pages under lernapps.net. A failing check stops the deploy.
Ideas
Services the platform design names but no journey needs. They show where the platform could grow; each is discussed in its own issue, which is the place to take part.
Building on existing apps
For app creators: Lets creators start from an existing app instead of from scratch, and lets others build on theirs.
For app creators: Lets experienced creators bring their own best practices into the guidance for building apps. Whoever shapes the guidance shapes the platform, so this is the path from creator to co-owner.
For adopting adults, students: Opens the path from using apps to making them: adults and students adapt an app or build their own, using the guidance for building apps.
Each part with the interfaces it offers, the services they serve and the parts that use them. Look things up here; each part is described as a whole in the architecture and in detail in its own repository.
Home pages: The home page, the privacy notice and the imprint, and the root llms.txt that leads AI assistants to the other parts of the platform. The privacy notice is part of the signal that an app may be used: it covers every app served under lernapps.net. Serves: Guidance for building apps, Clarity on fitness for use. Works with, outside the system: Creator's AI assistant.
Site frame: The shared header, footer, styles and counting snippet of every platform site, and site-check, the check every site runs on its built pages before it is deployed. The counting snippet reports visits to GoatCounter; this is where a creator's insight into the use of their app begins. Serves: Insight into use and feedback.Not yet: Only visits to an app's page in the catalog are counted, not the use of the app itself, and only the platform owner sees the totals. Used by: Catalog, Tooling, Practice, Docs. Works with, outside the system: Renovate, GoatCounter.
Catalog pages: The pages where adults and students find an app for a topic and grade, see its fitness for use, and find the way to build an app when none fits. Serves: Finding apps by topic and grade, Finding apps for a topic one struggles with, Clarity on fitness for use. Used by: Practice.
Listing: How a creator, through their AI assistant, lists an app: an entry by pull request, checked automatically (what the app sends to third parties and keeps in the browser, whether its links and topics hold, and that its licence allows the copy) and by a review agent, an AI that checks the app against a checklist, with the result as a comment on the pull request. Once the checks pass, the copy is published; no person has to act. What still waits on the platform owner is recorded as a gap of this interface, with the risk it carries. Serves: Help to list an app, Clarity on fitness for use.Not yet: A listing is published only after the platform owner approves the pull request, and the review agent runs only at their request. Risk until then: One owner. Works with, outside the system: Creator's AI assistant, GitHub.
Served apps: The copy of every listed app that lernapps.net serves and links: built from the release the creator publishes at their own address, and served under one address that keeps working. Serves: Starting an app right away.
Thanks: A thank-you and feedback in one click from the catalog or an app, counted openly and passed on to the creator. The interface stays the same when its realisation changes. No person has to act for thanks to arrive. What still waits on the platform owner is recorded as a gap of this interface, with the risk it carries. Serves: Insight into use and feedback, Giving feedback and thanks.Not yet: A click opens a prepared e-mail from the sender's own account; thanks and feedback arrive, but they are neither anonymous nor counted, and recommendations are not recorded.Not yet: Thanks reach the creator only if the platform owner passes them on. Risk until then: One owner. Works with, outside the system: E-mail.
App actions: The reusable workflows and actions an app's repository runs to check and build the app and to publish the creator's own release, at the creator's address. Works with, outside the system: Creators' app repositories, GitHub.
Guidance: The guidance by phase, the skills and the documentation that AI assistants read to build and list an app. Serves: Guidance for building apps. Works with, outside the system: Creator's AI assistant.
Site actions: The actions every platform site is built, checked and deployed with, and the previews of its pull requests: the website, the catalog, the docs and the tooling's own pages. Used by: Website, Catalog, Practice, Docs.
Tooling CLI: The command line an assistant and the workflows run: create an app from an archetype, check it against the rules, update it. Serves: Guidance for building apps. Used by: Catalog, Practice. Works with, outside the system: Creator's AI assistant, Creators' app repositories, Renovate.
Archetypes: The template and runtime of each archetype, which the tooling creates apps from and apps build with. Serves: Guidance for building apps. Used by: Tooling, Practice. Works with, outside the system: Renovate.
Submission form: The form through which a creator submits the content. Serves: A temporary app made to measure.
Practice guidance: The guidance that leads a creator's AI assistant to such an app, with an llms.txt. Serves: Guidance for building apps. Works with, outside the system: Creator's AI assistant.
Preview pages: The temporary app of each submission. Serves: A temporary app made to measure.Not yet: How a kept solution becomes an entry of the catalog, with its metadata, is not defined.
Parts that support the others
These parts provide no service to a journey, but they take part in the flows behind them.
Models: The platform design, the business model and the architecture as pages under lernapps.net/docs/, and a skill that lets an AI assistant work with the platform design.
Organisation rules: The rules, governance and templates every repository of the organisation follows, and the decisions that concern several repositories. Works with, outside the system: GitHub.
Read on
This page is the way in. Everything on it comes from the documents below; follow them for the full picture, in the depth each one has.
OrganisationWho carries lernapps.net and what for: objectives, risks, capabilities and products of an undertaking no one earns money with, as a biz42 model.
Platform designWho takes part and what they give each other: roles, transactions, services, journeys and the MVP, as a pdt42 model.
ArchitectureHow the system is built: quality goals, building blocks, flows, deployment, decisions and risks, as an arc42 model.
