The roadmap

Maya now needs to learn a pile of things at once: servers, networks, databases, containers, Terraform, pipelines. Each one comes with a list of tools. It is hard to know where to start, or what any of it is for.

This course answers that by following QuickCart, one problem at a time.

DevOps is everything that happens to code after a developer writes it: getting it to users safely, often, and keeping it running once it’s there.

The name joins two words, development and operations. In many companies these used to be separate teams. Developers wrote code and handed it over. An operations team ran it. Releases were slow and painful, because the people who wrote the code never saw it fail, and the people who saw it fail couldn’t change it. DevOps is the idea that one team owns both halves.

Every tool answers one problem

QuickCart grows from one laptop to millions of users. At each size, something new breaks. Each module in this course is the fix for one of those breaks.

Two ways to use the course

What you need

You don’t need any backend experience. If you can write an app and use a terminal a little, you have enough.

Below is QuickCart’s route. Choose Grow QuickCart to add users. At each stage, see what breaks, and which module fixes it. You can also jump to any stage on the line.

What to notice: no stage needs everything. A laptop doesn’t need Kubernetes, and a site with 50 users doesn’t need a pipeline. Knowing which problem you actually have is how you pick the right tool, and how you avoid building things you don’t need yet.

Free — nothing in this lab touches AWS.

You’ll check that your computer is ready for the course, and write down a plan: which route you’ll take, how much time you have, and what you’re willing to spend. About 10 minutes.

On macOS, open the Terminal app (search for it with Spotlight). On Linux, open your Terminal. On Windows, you’ll set up a terminal in Set up your computer; for this lab, use the Windows settings described in each step instead.

1. Check your system and its chip

   On macOS or Linux:

   TerminalCopy

   uname -sm

   Part	What it means
   uname	print information about the system
   -s	the name of the operating system’s kernel: Darwin on macOS, Linux on Linux
   -m	the machine’s hardware type: which kind of chip

   You should see

   Linux x86_64

   A Mac with an Apple chip prints Darwin arm64. On Windows, open Settings → System → About: System type shows the same thing, such as 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor.

   You see	It means
   x86_64 or x64-based	An Intel or AMD chip, like most servers on AWS
   arm64 or ARM-based	An ARM chip, such as Apple’s M-series or some Windows laptops

   Both work for this course. It matters later: a container image built on an ARM chip is built for ARM by default, and it won’t run on an Intel or AMD server unless you build it for that. The Dockerfile lesson shows how.

   Your system should be reasonably up to date. The tools in this course support recent versions of macOS, Windows 11 or Windows 10 (version 22H2), and current Linux releases such as Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04. If yours is several years behind, update it first.

2. Check your free disk space

   On macOS or Linux:

   TerminalCopy

   df -h /

   Part	What it means
   df	show how much space is free on your disks (short for disk free)
   -h	human-readable: show sizes like 212G instead of counting blocks
   /	only the main disk, the one your system runs from

   You should see

   Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
   /dev/nvme0n1p2  468G   94G  350G  22% /

   Look at the Avail column. Your numbers will differ, and macOS shows a few more columns, but Avail means the same everywhere. On Windows, open File Explorer → This PC: the free space on the C: drive is the number that matters.

3. Choose your route

   Pick one of these. You can change your mind later.

   Route	Modules	Good for
   The whole line	00 to 11, then all five projects	Going from zero to job-ready
   AWS first	00, 02 to 06, then Project 1 and Project 2	Understanding what your app’s backend really runs on
   Ship faster	00, 01, 07, 08, 10	Containers, releases and pipelines, if someone else runs the cloud side

   Write your choice down, in a notes app or on paper.

4. Decide your time and budget

   Fill in this table in the same note:

   Question	Example answer
   How many hours a week can you give this?	4 hours: two evenings
   Which days?	Tuesday and Thursday
   What’s the most you’ll spend on AWS in a month?	$10
   Who can you ask when you’re stuck?	A friend who works on backend, or a community forum

   The budget number matters. In the next lesson you’ll set up an alert that emails you before you reach it.

   You should see

   A short note with your route, your hours, and your monthly limit. That’s your plan.

5. Clean-up step: Clean up

   Nothing to delete. You only ran commands that read information; none of them changed anything.

   Keep your plan somewhere you’ll see it. When you finish a lesson, press Mark as done at the bottom of the page. Your progress fills in on the route map on the home page, and it stays in this browser.