Ahmad Awais

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Improve Developer Experience: The /home shortcut

Ahmad AwaisAhmad Awais

tl;dr: When I’m logged into a SaaS app, it’s super hard to access the company’s homepage unless I log out. I want every company to do a domain.tld/homeΒ shortcut so I can check out their homepage. Do that; it’s an excellent developer experience.

As developers, we often find ourselves constantly switching between different pages of the apps. Whether we’re working on a new feature, fixing a bug, or just testing out a change, it can be a hassle to constantly log in and out of our applications just to see how they appear to our users.

One pain point many developers experience is the inability to easily view their application’s homepage while logged in. This can be frustrating, as it requires an extra step of logging out just to see how the homepage appears to an unauthenticated user.

But what if there was a way to view the homepage β€” while you’re logged in? I do that all the time with a couple of companies.

Enters the /homeΒ shortcut#

By adding a simple shortcut, such as /home that takes users to the application’s homepage regardless of their login status; you can make developers happy.

Build this developer happy path. They’ll thank you for it.

Not only does this save time and frustration for developers, but it also improves the overall developer experience.

But the benefits of the “home” shortcut don’t stop there. It also improves the user experience by providing a quick and easy way for users to return to the homepage, regardless of where they are in the application.

Especially when there’s something fun on your homepage, and you want your users, i.e., developers, to showcase how cool your homepage is.

I do that all the time with

I was advising my good friends Zeno Rocha to do the same, who has just started building his new company, Resend.com β€” a new Email API for developers, an excellent upcoming developer tools company. And he did. In fact, he said, and I quote, “I was struggling with that too, always had to log out.”

The /home Shortcut

So I figured I should write about it and make it a thing, so developers would have a place to refer others when asking for the /home shortcut.

Peace!

Founder & CEO of Langbase.com β€” The most powerful serverless AI developer platform for building AI products Β· Ship agentic AI pipes, tools, and memory with BaseAI β€” The first Web AI Framework (free, open-source, local-first, deploys serverless, agentic pipes, tools, and memory)

Ex VP DevTools & DevRel Eng. Rapid Β· Google Developers Advisory Board (gDAB) founding member. πŸ§‘β€πŸ’» AI/ML/DevTools Angel Investor ❯ AI/ML Advisory Board San Francisco, DevNetwork

🎩 Award-winning Open Source Engineer & Dev Advocate 🦊 Google Developers Expert Web DevRel πŸš€ NASA Mars Ingenuity Helicopter mission code contributor πŸ† 8th GitHub Stars Award recipient with 5x GitHub Stars Award (Listed as GitHub's #1 JavaScript trending developer).

🌳 Node.js foundation Community Committee Outreach Lead, Member Linux Foundation, OpenAPI Business Governing Board, and DigitalOcean Navigator. πŸ“Ÿ Teaching thousands of developers Node.js CLI Automation and VSCode.pro course. Over 142 million views, 24 yrs Blogging, 108K developers learning, 200+ FOSS.

✌️ Author of various open-source dev-tools and software libraries utilized by millions of developers worldwide ⓦ WordPress Core Developer πŸ“£ TEDx Speaker with 100+ international talks.

✨ As quoted by: Satya Nadella Β· CEO of Microsoft β€” Awais is an awesome example for developers.
πŸ’œ Loves his wife (Maedah) ❯ Read more about Ahmad Awais.

πŸ‘‹β€¦ Awais is mostly active on 𝕏 @MrAhmadAwais

πŸ“¨

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Comments 11
  • Brendan Charles
    Posted on

    Brendan Charles Brendan Charles

    Reply Author

    That sounds interesting, thanks for sharing!




    • Ahmad Awais
      Posted on

      Ahmad Awais Ahmad Awais

      Reply Author

      Glad you enjoyed it. Let’s get deva to ship this in their apps.


  • Tessa D. Mora
    Posted on

    Tessa D. Mora Tessa D. Mora

    Reply Author

    This is such a simple yet genius idea! I’ve already started implementing it in my own SaaS app and I can’t believe I didn’t think of it earlier. Thanks for sharing this tip, Ahmad!


  • Rose R. Robertson
    Posted on

    Rose R. Robertson Rose R. Robertson

    Reply Author

    As a developer, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to log out of an app just to check its homepage. The /home shortcut is a game-changer, and I hope more companies adopt this approach.


  • Emma Nunez
    Posted on

    Emma Nunez Emma Nunez

    Reply Author

    I completely agree with the importance of improving developer experience. Little things like the /home shortcut can make a big difference in productivity and overall satisfaction with a tool.


  • Arthur Gerhard
    Posted on

    Arthur Gerhard Arthur Gerhard

    Reply Author

    Wow, I never realized how frustrating it was to not have quick access to the homepage while logged in until now. Thanks for bringing this issue to light and providing a simple solution.


  • Bernard Owens
    Posted on

    Bernard Owens Bernard Owens

    Reply Author

    I love how this not only benefits developers, but also improves the user experience for all users of the application. Win-win!


  • Sandy Wilson
    Posted on

    Sandy Wilson Sandy Wilson

    Reply Author

    Ahmad, you always provide such valuable insights and tips for developers. Keep up the great work!


  • Axel Miller
    Posted on

    Axel Miller Axel Miller

    Reply Author

    The /home shortcut is such a simple yet effective solution. I hope more companies take note and implement it in their own applications.


  • Torrey McCullough
    Posted on

    Torrey McCullough Torrey McCullough

    Reply Author

    I’ve been using the /home shortcut on GitHub for a while now, and I can’t imagine going back to having to log out just to see the homepage. Thanks for spreading the word about this helpful feature.


  • Wallace Rolfson
    Posted on

    Wallace Rolfson Wallace Rolfson

    Reply Author

    It’s great to see companies like Resend.com already adopting the /home shortcut. This is a great example of how small changes can have a big impact on developer experience.