Changelog

A clearer module 02, a real Cookie Policy, and your cookie choice respected everywhere

• New Cookie Policy page that lists every cookie builders.zone sets, what it is for and how long it lasts
• Analytics follow your cookie choice: in the EU nothing runs until you accept; everywhere else Reject turns all analytics off (Google Analytics, Clarity, Reaudit and our own product analytics)
• Step 0 is now "get your AI tool": you install one AI coding tool, and your agent checks your computer and installs Node, Git, the GitHub CLI and Docker for you, asking before each install
• Before the brief, say what kind of product you are building: SaaS, pay per use, a digital product, a booking business, a community, a marketplace, an internal tool, a shop or a mobile app. Your AI says what the boilerplate keeps, changes or turns off for it
• New step: your look and brand kit. Give your AI 3 to 5 references (screenshots, links, your logo) and it makes your logo and app icon, colours, fonts, voice and share image, and puts them into the app
• New step: your full website. Before going online, your AI replaces the placeholder text on the home, about, contact, pricing and blog pages, then builds the home page sections and new pages you ask for
• The database step is now "Your database: keep it local or move it online": your app already has a working database, so you choose whether to keep it or move it to MongoDB Atlas
• Mailpit explained: the pretend email inbox where every email your app sends lands while you build
• Cursor cloud agents: new setup steps that work. Add builders.zone at cursor.com/agents with your token, instead of .cursor/mcp.json
• The cohort view in your AI tool says "Ask your AI" instead of naming one tool
• Unlinking GitHub asks in the page instead of a browser pop-up, and the guides point to Resources → Boilerplate
• Boilerplate v1.5.0: every switch in Admin → Settings now works (maintenance mode, closing sign-ups, two-factor codes by email, lockouts, session timeout, email and Google Analytics settings, feature switches and limits), plus a step-by-step admin guide with the builders.zone dot that shows what every page and setting does

Legal pages for your product, and mailing lists you choose

• Module 06 is live: a guide to the privacy policy, terms, refund policy and cookie policy your product needs before its first payment, and when to get a lawyer
• Say "write my legal pages" in your AI tool: it reads your repo to see what your app really collects, interviews you about your business, pricing, refunds and markets, then writes the four pages and wires them into the footer, signup and checkout
• Covers subscriptions, one-off and lifetime deals, credits, B2B seats, user content and AI features, with privacy rules for the EU, the UK, the US and everywhere else
• Zero refunds explained honestly: how the EU and UK 14-day withdrawal right works, the checkout waiver for digital content, and why web apps are different
• Boilerplate v1.4.0 ships the clause library, a refund page, a Cookie settings link, proof of which terms each user accepted, a terms checkbox at Stripe checkout, campaign tracking that waits for cookie consent, and signup location without sending IPs to four services
• New Mailing lists page: keep the newsletter on and pick only the topics you want; turning the newsletter off clears every topic
• Read again any newsletter you received, in a members-only archive
• Admins: create and archive topic lists, see a consent log for each, and send a newsletter to one topic only

The app demo examples play live

• The twelve example demos on App demo and Motion kit now play live in code instead of as video files: pages load about 1.8 MB for all of them instead of 73 MB of video
• Each example has a 16:9 and 9:16 switch, pauses when you scroll past it or click it, and opens full size in its own player
• The app demo kit can do the same on your own site: embed its player with ?embed=1 instead of an MP4

App demo: a video of your app in both shapes

• New step in module 13, App demo: plan a 20–40 second story, screenshot your running app and export a 16:9 and a 9:16 MP4 from one settings file
• The app demo kit: six files your AI tool adds to your repo that take the screenshots (desktop and phone), add highlights, clicks, typing, zoom and scroll, and record frame by frame
• A prompt and a skill for your AI tool: say "make my app demo" and it plans the story with you, builds the video and updates it whenever your app changes
• Twelve example videos of builders.zone itself: six made from screenshots and six animated with the builders.zone dot, with the settings and full HTML behind each one so your AI tool can learn from them
• The motion kit: a second style with no screenshots, drawn in code in the style of the dot animation
• The dot now sits in the collapsed sidebar and follows your cursor

One look across the member pages

• Boilerplate and Connect AI tool now live under Resources: Boilerplate is a tab next to Cohort path and Library, and the sidebar is shorter
• Apps, People, VCs, Launch, Leaderboard, Events, Test & earn, Wallet and profiles get the cohort path's look, with cards that fit a phone
• Launch's wide table becomes cards, and the leaderboard gets a podium for the top three
• Boilerplate shows three steps that follow your repo access, with the release notes alongside
• Icons sit in simple outlined tiles everywhere, on the site and in the cohort view in your AI tool

A cohort path that shows you the way

• A new cohort path: your progress at a glance, one "Next up" card with a single Continue button, and the four phases (Build, Get ready to sell, Launch, Grow) as steps you can tap
• Only the phase you are in starts open, so the path is calm and easy to follow; each phase has its own colour, from indigo to orange
• The builders.zone dot stands on the module you are on and hops to whichever one you point at, and it celebrates when you mark a step done
• Every module, guide and prompt page has the same look: a trail of the modules in your phase, the parts of the module you are reading, and a Next button as soon as you finish
• Guides read better, with numbered sections at the top and coloured lists and callouts; prompts sit in their own card with a copy button
• Once your AI tool is connected, the Connect your AI tool banner folds into a small icon next to search
• The cohort view in Claude and other AI tools gets the same design, in English and Greek
• Your AI tool now teaches as it goes: when it follows a cohort prompt or guide it explains each step, the commands and the files, lets you do small steps yourself and recaps what you learned

Start in your AI tool, edit your posts

• New page at builders.zone/mcp with the steps to connect Claude, Claude Code, Cursor or Codex, and a Connect AI tool page with a tab for each tool
• Say "start builders.zone" in your AI tool: the new start prompt takes you from installing your tools to the boilerplate running locally, your idea checked and your first build
• Search now covers the full text of every guide and prompt, so a question like "docker port in use" finds the paragraph that answers it
• Module 02 gets new guides: set up your computer, get the boilerplate, connect your database (local, MongoDB Atlas, Supabase) and put your app online with Vercel
• Edit your own posts and replies, on the site or from your AI tool (bz_edit_post); edited posts are marked as edited
• Admin: a more compact dashboard, a Needs Attention page for users stuck in the funnel with a count in the sidebar, and the sidebar now highlights only the page you are on

The cohort in Greek, with the dot

• Read the cohort path and every guide, prompt and skill in Greek: switch EN/ΕΛ in the cohort view, or it follows your Claude language
• Translations are stored once and reused; when a guide changes, you see the English until the Greek is updated
• The builders.zone dot joins you in the cohort view: it stands on your current module, watches your cursor and hops to the next step when you mark one done
• Admins can check and save translations from their AI assistant (bz_admin_translation_status, bz_admin_save_translation)

Your cohort path, right inside Claude

• In Claude and other assistants that support MCP Apps, the cohort path opens as an interactive view: your progress, what is next, and a Continue button
• Read each step in the chat, mark it done with one click and go straight to the next one, or ask Claude to help with it
• Boilerplate setup is a checklist with copy buttons for the git commands and the latest release notes
• The assistant connection now uses the newest MCP version (2026-07-28) and stays connected through builders.zone updates

Your AI assistant reconnects on its own

• After a builders.zone update, Claude, Cursor and other MCP assistants reconnect automatically instead of failing until you reconnect them by hand
• Each assistant connection is tied to your account

A security pass and a contact page

• A full security review of builders.zone, with every issue it found fixed: stronger protection for accounts, invitations, profiles and payments
• Resetting your password now signs you out everywhere else, and reset links work only once
• Sign-in attempts are limited per account, so a whole bootcamp room on one Wi-Fi never gets locked out
• New contact page at builders.zone/contact for questions about the bootcamp, the community or partnerships
• Bank transfer and SEPA payments unlock your seat as soon as they clear
• Fixes: paying as a guest now confirms your seat straight away, and app autofill picks up a site preview image again
• Updated Next.js, image processing and email libraries to their latest secure versions

Cohort guides that match your boilerplate

• Boilerplate v1.1.0 is out: faster and better-indexed public pages, Meta and LinkedIn tags after marketing consent, Search Console verification, llms.txt, and a Docker build that keeps your app name and analytics IDs
• Modules 02, 05, 07 and 09 rewritten for the boilerplate you actually get: the CSS check, what the boilerplate already does for speed and SEO, Stripe for your own plans, and launch analytics wired to signups
• Connecting GitHub now brings you back to builders.zone instead of a blank page
• Cookie settings start with optional cookies off, and Meta and LinkedIn tags load once you accept marketing cookies

Your copy of the boilerplate

• Cohort members get the private Builders Zone boilerplate: connect GitHub on the new Boilerplate page (or the last onboarding step) and we invite you to the repo
• See the latest boilerplate release and its notes, with copy-paste commands to start your project and pull every update
• Module 01 is live: the boilerplate access and update guide, plus a prompt and a skill so your AI agent can start your project or merge a new release safely
• New bz_boilerplate MCP tool: your assistant checks your access and the latest version before updating your app
• Discord removed: announcements, events and tester requests stay in the builders.zone feed

Faster pages & the cohort in your AI assistant

• Cohort members can connect Claude, Claude Code or Cursor over MCP: the cohort path, search, full prompts and guides, progress, and cohort prompts as slash commands
• Cohort steps show the services they cover (Stripe, Google Analytics, Search Console, Reaudit, Cloudflare and more), and every resource credits its author with a link to their profile
• New module 05 harness and playbook: site speed, SEO and agent readiness; new module 02 guide to connect your AI assistant; module 03 deploy harness coming soon
• Faster public pages on phones: less JavaScript, a stylesheet half the size, analytics and error monitoring loaded after the page, and a slimmer cookie bar with equal Reject and Accept
• Accessibility fixes across the site (contrast, headings, labels), cleaner sitemap and robots.txt, FAQ schema, and a Markdown version of the homepage for AI agents

Token-lean AI coding guides

• Resources guides and per-tool prompts for lean AGENTS.md, Cursor rules, Cline, Copilot, Windsurf, Gemini CLI and Codex
• Resources show which AI coding tools they cover, with tool icons and a filter by tool
• Admins can tag resources by tool and import the guide pack in one click
• Profile businesses get their own block with logo, details and optional revenue chart

Cleaner profiles & supporter rail

• Slimmer founder profiles: one identity block, businesses live in the Businesses section (no duplicate “building” lines)
• Revenue totals and tester stats removed from the profile header; verified charts and app cards stay below
• Supporters ticker fills the right rail, taller cards, Reaudit.io logo with “Brand visibility” tagline
• Changelog and legal links moved off the sidebar into the rail footer; profile badges show as icons beside the avatar
• Total revenue badges (€1K / €10K / €20K) from Stripe lifetime totals

Launch directories, Greek VCs & agent tools

• Launch directory catalog (58+ platforms) with playbooks and per-app submission tracker
• Greek VC directory with LinkedIn and website links
• MCP tools for listing platforms, playbooks, VC firms, and recording launch submissions
• Event favicons in the home “Coming up” rail
• Public changelog page and version label in the app

Founders community platform

• Member feed, apps directory, test-for-credits economy, and cohort resources
• Founder profiles, events, messaging, wallet, and leaderboard
• Stripe revenue verification on startup profiles
• Admin community tools, MCP for members and admins
• Marketing site, waitlist, and Athens bootcamp landing