The family birthdays page
Use with: build-website. Resume line when done: Built {project_name}, a family reference site compiled from interviews across {n} households — live at {url}
Brief
Everyone in your extended family, at one URL: who they are, when their birthday is, and what they would honestly like. Built by interviewing your parents, who carry this information in their heads and are tired of being the ones who remember. Shared with the relatives who always forget, a week before it can save them.
Personalize
- How far the family extends. Draw the line with your parents: grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, maybe the family friends who count as family. Twenty to forty people is typical.
- The gift intelligence. The list of what each person likes is the part no calendar app has. Your parents know that one uncle collects stamps and one cousin is between phone cases; get it down.
- Who sees it. Birthdays plus names is personal information. Decide with your parents: unlisted URL shared only inside the family is the sensible default. Ask relatives before listing birth years; day and month are usually enough.
Milestones
- Interview your parents; build the roster with dates and the likes-and-interests notes.
- Consent round: relatives are told they are going on a family page and can opt out or trim their entry.
- Page live at an unlisted URL, sorted by upcoming birthday so the next one is always on top.
- Gift notes added, phrased kindly; anything a relative would wince at gets cut.
- Parents review the whole page; corrections applied. They share the link to the family chat.
- First save: a relative uses the page before a birthday. Note it. Final README.
Done means
- Live URL responding, sorted by next-upcoming birthday
- Every listed relative was informed; opt-outs honored, recorded in the README
- Parents' review and sign-off recorded in the README
- The link was shared in the family chat and used by at least one relative ahead of a birthday, noted in the README
- Visibility choice (unlisted or private) documented and deliberate
- At least 8 commits across at least 5 distinct days, authored by you
- SESSIONS.md has an entry per session, written by you