DEV Community: Augustine

Building the Biggest Documentation Site I've Ever Written (For My Own Product)

Augustine — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 13:17:49 +0000

When I started building Cloudpen, I underestimated one thing.

Documentation.

Like many developers, I thought I'd write a few pages after the product was working.

I was wrong.

As Cloudpen grew, I realized documentation isn't something you add at the end—it's part of the product itself.

So over the past few weeks, I built what has become the largest documentation project I've ever written for a personal product.

What I wanted to achieve

I didn't want a documentation site that simply listed features.

I wanted developers to understand:

What Cloudpen is
Why certain features exist
How everything works together
Best practices
Common workflows
Future roadmap

The goal was to make the docs useful whether someone had never heard of Cloudpen or had already been using it for weeks.

What the documentation covers

✅ Getting Started

✅ The Code Editor

✅ Frontend & Backend Execution

✅ Deployment

✅ AI Assistant (Quill)

✅ GitHub Integration

✅ Team Collaboration

✅ Templates

✅ CLI Tool

✅ Pricing & Plans

✅ Global Search

✅ Cloudpen vs Alternatives

✅ Troubleshooting

✅ Roadmap

…and every other part of the platform.

Inspiration

I spent a lot of time studying documentation from GitHub and Vercel.

Not to copy them, but to understand why their documentation feels so effortless to navigate.

Things I paid attention to included:

Navigation hierarchy
Search experience
Content organization
Consistent page layouts
Clear writing
Progressive learning

Those ideas heavily influenced how I structured Cloudpen's documentation.

What I learned

Writing code is difficult.

Writing documentation that thousands of developers can understand is an entirely different skill.

It forces you to think from the reader's perspective instead of your own.

Several times I found myself rewriting entire sections simply because I realized a first-time user wouldn't think the same way I did.

That process actually improved the product itself.

The documentation is now live

If you'd like to check it out:

👉 https://cloudpen.dev/docs

I'd genuinely appreciate feedback from other developers. Documentation is never truly finished—it's something that evolves alongside the product.

Building a Production-Ready Hospital Management System Template with React

Augustine — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 16:45:11 +0000

I've started building a Hospital Management System on Cloudpen.

This isn't a client project or a demo application—it's a production-ready template that will be available for the Cloudpen community to use, customize, and deploy.

One of the goals of Cloudpen is to make it easier for developers to start real projects without spending hours recreating the same boilerplate over and over again. Instead of beginning with an empty project, you'll be able to fork a complete application and build on top of it.

Why a Hospital Management System?

Hospital Management Systems are great examples of real-world applications because they combine multiple features that many business applications need, including:

Patient Management
Doctor Management
Appointment Scheduling
Department Management
Dashboard & Analytics
Authentication & User Management

Building this template also helps improve Cloudpen itself. Developing real applications inside the platform is one of the fastest ways to identify areas that can be improved and to build features that solve actual developer problems.

Built with React

Many members of the Cloudpen community requested that future templates be built entirely with React, so that's exactly what I'm doing.

The goal is to create a clean, modern, and scalable foundation that developers can confidently use for their own projects instead of starting from scratch.

Using Quill AI During Development

One of the tools that's become part of my daily workflow is Quill AI, Cloudpen's built-in AI assistant.

Throughout development I've been using it to:

Explain unfamiliar code
Refactor components
Generate repetitive code
Answer development questions
Stay focused without constantly switching between different tools

Having AI integrated directly into the editor makes development much smoother because I can keep working without breaking my flow.

Coming to Cloudpen Templates

Once development is complete, this project will be published on Cloudpen's /templates page.

From there, anyone will be able to:

Fork the template with a single click
Customize it however they want
Download the complete source code
Deploy it directly from Cloudpen
Share a live version of their application

My goal is to build templates that are genuinely useful—not just showcase projects, but foundations that developers can use to build real products.

This Hospital Management System is only the beginning. I'm already planning additional production-ready templates across different industries and use cases.

If there's a template you'd like to see on Cloudpen, I'd love to hear your suggestions.

https://cloudpen.dev/templates

We added Bring Your Own AI Key (BYOK) to our browser IDE

Augustine — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 16:57:09 +0000

One of the biggest requests we kept getting was simple:

"Can I use my own OpenAI or Claude API key instead of the shared quota?"

So we built it.

Cloudpen's AI coding assistant, Quill, now supports Bring Your Own Key (BYOK).

By default, Quill uses Cloudpen's shared AI pool, which is perfect for getting started. But once you're working on larger projects or relying heavily on AI, shared rate limits become noticeable.

With BYOK you can connect your own provider and use Quill with your own quota instead.

What you can do
Connect your own OpenAI, Anthropic (Claude), Gemini, Grok, or OpenRouter API key
Use your provider's own limits instead of Cloudpen's shared pool
Pick the model that best fits the task
GPT-4o for complex reasoning
Claude Opus for long-context editing
Gemini Flash for speed
Switch between keys whenever you want
Remove your key at any time and instantly fall back to the shared pool
Security

One thing we cared about from the beginning was key security.

API keys are encrypted using AES-256 before storage and the raw key is never returned after saving. Only the last few characters are shown so you can identify which key is active.

Why we built it

The goal with Cloudpen has always been to remove friction from development.

Sometimes that means adding an editor.

Sometimes it means offline support.

Sometimes it means letting developers bring their own infrastructure instead of forcing ours.

BYOK falls into that last category.

If you already pay for an AI provider, you should be able to use it directly inside your editor.

We're continuing to build Cloudpen in public, and this is one more step toward making it a complete browser-based development environment.

I'd love to hear how you'd approach BYOK in your own editor—or what providers you'd want to see next.

Build and preview

Augustine — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 15:28:40 +0000

Future of web development?

Augustine — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 14:40:53 +0000

Just randomly building a React project on Cloudpen and realized I haven't opened VS Code once.

Installed packages with:

npm install react-icons

directly from Cloudpen's built-in terminal.

No local setup.
No editor switching.
No terminal juggling.

The terminal behaves like you'd expect from a desktop development environment, so you can install dependencies, run commands, and manage your project entirely in the browser.

When I'm done, I'll simply hit Deploy and share the live URL.

Building, running terminal commands, and deploying—all from one place.

buildinpublic #webdev #react #cloudpen

I Built a Full Automobile Website on Cloudpen in Minutes — Here's What That Actually Means

Augustine — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 04:05:34 +0000

I just deployed a responsive automobile company website with parallax animations, and the entire build happened inside Cloudpen — no local setup, no terminal, no deployment pipeline to configure.

Live site: https://aureve-motors.cloudpen.dev/

What I Used

Cloudpen's in-browser editor — full-featured, feels like VS Code in the browser.

Quill (AI Agent) — not just autocomplete. Quill helped me write components, fix layout issues, and refactor sections on the fly. It's genuinely agentic.

One-click deploy — hit deploy, get a live URL with SSL automatically enabled. That's it.

Templates Marketplace — if you're starting from scratch and don't know where to begin, there are templates built by Cloudpen and the community. One click and it's yours to edit.

The Part That Surprised Me

I didn't touch a server. I didn't configure nginx. I didn't open a terminal once.

For frontend projects especially, Cloudpen has genuinely removed the gap between "idea" and "live link you can share."

Pro plan adds custom domain support — so what you build doesn't just work, it looks like a real product.

If you've been sleeping on it: cloudpen.dev

Your Next Project Is Already Half Built

Augustine — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 19:58:00 +0000

We just shipped a Template Gallery for Cloudpen — here's why we built it

Every time someone tried Cloudpen for the first time, the feedback followed a pattern.

They liked the editor. They liked the one-click deploy. But a surprising number of people got stuck at the very beginning — staring at a blank project, unsure how to structure it for Cloudpen's build system.

That friction was on us. So we fixed it.

What we shipped

Cloudpen now has a Template Gallery — a curated library of ready-made starter projects you can preview live and fork into your workspace in one click.

Every template is a real deployed project. Before you commit to anything, you can open a live preview of exactly what it looks like and how it behaves. If it's what you need, you fork it. A full copy — all files, folder structure, and dependencies — lands in your workspace instantly and the editor opens.

No scaffolding. No config. You start from something that already works.

What's in the gallery

The initial library covers the starters developers actually reach for:

React + Vite
Vue + Vite
Vanilla JS
Portfolio templates
Landing page starters
More being added based on feedback

Official vs Community templates

Templates are split into two types.

Official templates are built and maintained by the Cloudpen team. They're verified to build correctly, deploy without issues, and follow the project structure Cloudpen's build system expects. They carry a verified badge.

Community templates are built by Cloudpen users and shared publicly. They go through a review before appearing in the gallery, but they're maintained by their authors. This is also how you can submit your own — deploy a public project, submit it, and if it passes review it goes live in the Community tab.

Why we built it this way

We made a deliberate call to make every template a live deployed project rather than just a ZIP file or a code snapshot. The preview had to be real — you're seeing the actual running output, not a screenshot.

The fork had to be instant. The moment you click Fork, the editor opens. There's no loading screen, no "initializing project" spinner. You're in.

And your fork is completely independent. Changes you make never touch the original template.

Try it and tell us what's missing

The gallery is live now at cloudpen.dev.

We're actively building out the library and we're prioritising based on what people actually ask for. If there's a framework, stack, or starter you wish was already there — drop it in the comments. We read everything.

cloudpen #webdev #opensource #buildinpublic

Quill: AI That Lives Inside Your Project, Not Another Tab

Augustine — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 12:23:00 +0000

We built an AI coding assistant that doesn’t live in another tab

Most AI coding tools still interrupt your flow.

You hit an error → open a new tab → paste code → explain your project → wait for a response → copy everything back.

That loop doesn’t feel dramatic, but it quietly breaks concentration over and over.

We built Quill to remove that friction entirely.

AI that stays inside your editor

Quill lives directly inside Cloudpen’s editor as a movable panel that stays alongside your code while you work.

It doesn’t try to pull you away from your environment. It adapts to it.

You can drag it anywhere, keep it open while you code, or pull it up only when you need it.

No tab switching. No context loss. No re-explaining your project every time.

But the real difference isn’t where Quill lives.

It’s what it knows.

Context is the real product

Because Quill runs inside your project, it already understands what you’re working on.

That changes everything:

Highlight code → explain or fix it
Right-click a file → get a full explanation of what it does
Ask for a review → get improvements based on your actual codebase
Debug errors → without copy-pasting into another tool
Generate functions/components → directly inside your workflow

It’s not “AI you consult.”

It’s AI that is already inside the problem space.

Why a movable panel?

We spent a lot of time on this decision.

We tried:

A persistent sidebar
A command palette
Inline ghost-text suggestions

We kept returning to the same idea: developers don’t work the same way.

Some people want an assistant always visible.
Others only want it when they’re stuck.

A fixed sidebar forces a workflow on you.

A floating, movable panel doesn’t.

It stays present without being opinionated about how you should code.

Developers don’t want one AI model

Another thing we learned: model preference is personal.

Some developers prefer GPT-4o. Others use Claude, Gemini, Grok, or OpenRouter models.

So we built BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) into Cloudpen Pro.

You can plug in:

OpenAI
Anthropic
Gemini
Groq
xAI
OpenRouter

Quill will use your key directly.

No shared limits. No hidden caps. No forced model choices.

Your usage is only constrained by your provider.

For everyone else

If you don’t bring your own key, Quill still works out of the box using Cloudpen’s shared pool.

You get Limited requests/day, which is enough for a full coding session for most developers.

We arrived at that number after testing real usage patterns during beta—it covers typical daily workflows without forcing constant upgrades.

Quill wasn’t supposed to be the main feature

Cloudpen started as a browser-based IDE:

Real terminal
Live deployments
GitHub integration
Full development environment in the browser

Quill was originally just an add-on.

But over time, it became one of the most used parts of the platform.

Because once it’s sitting right beside your code, it’s hard to go back to context switching.

Closing thought

The best AI coding assistant isn’t the one in another tab.

It’s the one already sitting next to your code when you need it.

If you’ve used AI tools while coding, I’m curious:

Do you prefer AI inside your editor, or do you still rely on separate tools like ChatGPT/Claude tabs—and why?

Why We Cut Cloudpen Pro's Price in Half for Students

Augustine — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 23:03:19 +0000

Students Kept Asking About Pricing. Here's What We Changed.

Over the past few months, one piece of feedback kept showing up in our inbox.

"Do you have a student discount?"

At first, I didn't think much of it. But the requests kept coming.

Some were university students learning web development. Others were bootcamp students trying to build projects for their portfolios. A few were self-taught developers coding from older laptops or even their phones.

What they all had in common was simple: they wanted access to professional development tools without adding another expensive subscription to their monthly expenses.

That feedback pushed us to rethink our pricing.

Today, we're launching a student plan for Cloudpen Pro at $6/month.

That's half the regular price, and unlike many introductory discounts, it's locked in for every renewal as long as the account remains eligible.

For anyone unfamiliar with Cloudpen, it's a browser-based cloud IDE designed to let developers write, run, and deploy applications without installing anything.

The student plan includes:

A professional VS Code-quality editor powered by Monaco
A real terminal environment
Support for Python, C, C++, Node.js, PHP, Go, and Ruby
One-click deployment to a live URL
Automatic SSL
Permanent hosting
GitHub integration with automatic redeployments
Quill AI assistant with 100 requests per day included
Unlimited projects
1GB storage
Custom domain support
Full mobile optimization

One thing we were careful about: we didn't want the free plan to become unusable.

Too many developer tools advertise a free plan that becomes restrictive after a few minutes of use.

So we're keeping the free plan fully functional.

Free users still get:

5 projects
Real code execution
Terminal access
Deployments
No credit card requirement

The goal isn't simply to sell subscriptions.

The goal is to make it easier for people to learn, build, and ship projects regardless of the device they're using or the budget they have available.

If you're a student, the discount is applied automatically when you sign up using a university email address.

No promo codes. No forms. No approval process.

Just build.

What are your thoughts on student pricing for developer tools? I'd love to hear how other founders and developers approach it.

Why I built deployment into the IDE instead of making it a separate step

Augustine — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 10:14:51 +0000

Why does deploying a website still require 3 different platforms?

I've always found something strange about modern web development.

You can build an entire application in one place.

But the moment you're ready to share it with the world, you're suddenly juggling multiple services:

Your code lives in one place
Your hosting lives somewhere else
Your domain is managed somewhere else
SSL certificates are handled by another system
Deployment pipelines need their own configuration

For experienced developers, this is normal.

For beginners, it's often the most frustrating part of the entire process.

Over the last year, while building Cloudpen, I kept asking myself a simple question:

What if deployment was just part of the development experience instead of a completely separate workflow?

So that's what I built.

The deployment flow

When you finish a project in Cloudpen, you click Deploy.

That's it.

A live cloudpen.dev URL is generated within seconds.

SSL is automatically provisioned.

No deployment scripts.

No server setup.

No terminal commands.

No separate hosting account.

Custom domains

Custom domains follow the same philosophy.

Add a CNAME record in your DNS provider.

Click Verify inside Cloudpen.

Cloudpen handles SSL provisioning and configuration automatically.

The goal is to remove the common friction points that usually appear after a project is already finished.

GitHub integration

For developers who prefer Git-based workflows, Cloudpen supports GitHub repository integration.

Once connected, pushes to GitHub can automatically trigger redeployments.

Your live application stays synchronized with your repository without requiring additional deployment pipelines or manual publishing steps.

React and Vue projects

Another area that creates unnecessary friction is the build process.

Many developers end up switching between local environments, CI pipelines, and hosting dashboards just to get a production build online.

Cloudpen automatically detects React and Vue projects and runs the build process during deployment.

No local build step required.

No extra deployment configuration.

Why I built it this way

I don't think hosting platforms are the problem.

The problem is that deployment has gradually become a separate discipline.

For many projects, especially personal projects, prototypes, portfolios, internal tools, and MVPs, developers shouldn't need to think about infrastructure before they can share their work.

The ideal workflow should feel like this:

Build → Deploy → Share

Nothing more.

That's the direction I'm pushing Cloudpen toward.

I'm curious:

What part of deployment do you find most frustrating today?

We built a GitHub-style social layer inside our cloud IDE — here's why

Augustine — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 23:07:33 +0000

Most IDEs are isolated by design.

Your code lives in a workspace. Collaboration happens somewhere else. Discovery happens somewhere else. Building in public happens somewhere else.

We wanted to change that.

That's why we shipped Cloudpen Community.

Cloudpen is a browser-based cloud IDE with built-in deployment and collaboration features. The Community layer sits on top of that and gives every developer a public presence tied directly to their work.

What's included

🧑‍💻 Public profiles

Every account gets a profile at cloudpen.dev/u/username.

Profiles include:

Pinned projects
Star and fork counts
Contribution activity heatmaps
Languages and skills
Followers and following

Your work has a permanent public home.

🔍 Explore & Fork

Browse public projects from other developers.

See something interesting?

Fork it directly into your workspace and start building immediately.

No cloning.
No local setup.
No environment configuration.

Just open and build.

👥 Follow Developers

Discover developers whose work interests you and follow what they're building.

Instead of finding projects through social media posts, you can discover them directly where they're created.

🤝 Direct Project Collaborators

Invite specific developers to collaborate on projects.

Permissions are granular, so you control exactly who can view, edit, or manage project resources.

** 🏗️ Public Teams**

Teams can be public and open for anyone to request joining.

Permissions are role-based:

Owner
Admin
Write
Read-only

All permission checks are enforced at the API level.

** Why we built it**

Open source proved that developers learn faster when work is visible.

But most development tools still separate coding, discovery, collaboration, and community into different products.

We wanted them to exist in one place.

Cloudpen is no longer just a place to write code.

It's also a place to discover developers, collaborate on projects, and build in public.

🔗 cloudpen.dev/community

The feature I wish existed when my internet kept failing

Augustine — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 16:41:50 +0000

Most cloud development tools assume you're always online.

I grew up with unreliable internet, so that never felt like a safe assumption.

That's why I spent the last few weeks upgrading Cloudpen's Offline Mode.

Now, if your connection disappears:

→ Your workspace still loads from local cache
→ Files open normally
→ Changes are saved locally and queued automatically
→ Pending edits survive browser restarts
→ Sync resumes automatically when you're back online

The most challenging part wasn't storing changes offline.

It was conflict resolution.

If a file changes on the server while you're editing it offline, Cloudpen doesn't blindly overwrite anything. It pauses, shows both versions with a line-by-line diff, and lets you resolve the conflict before continuing.

The goal wasn't to build a degraded offline experience.

The goal was to make internet outages feel almost irrelevant.

cloudpen.dev

webdev #devtools #javascript #saas #buildinpublic