Going online (optional)

This lesson is still being tested: it improves with learners' feedback. If something is unclear, it is the lesson that needs fixing, not you.

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to

decide whether to go online, or whether your local tool is enough;
know what going online changes: what becomes public, what is not shared;
go through the checklist before publishing;
know one example of hosting: GitHub Pages, and its conditions.

Why it matters to you

Going online seems like the natural step. Often, it isn’t needed: a local tool does its job very well. And when it is needed, it changes a lot of things: everything becomes public, visitors’ data is recorded by the host, and a tool that keeps its data in the browser does not become shared just because of that. This lesson helps you decide, before you publish anything.

Before you start


You need	Your project under Git, with no secret (lessons 5 and 6); a GitHub account, only if you decide to publish
Cost	€0 to decide. GitHub Pages is available for public repositories with GitHub’s free plan (24/10/2026). Other hosts have their own plans, to be checked
Duration	60 minutes
Reminder	A site that is online is public: everything it contains, and often all of its code, can be read

Understand it in 3 minutes

Three questions before publishing:

Who needs to access it, and from where? Only you, on your computer: stay local. Other people, each on their own: going online can help.
Does the data need to be shared? A tool that keeps its data in the browser (lesson 3) keeps it in each person’s browser. Online, everyone will have their own logbook, empty at the start. A shared tool requires a server and a database: another level, with accounts, costs and personal data to protect.
What becomes public? The page, of course. And depending on the hosting, all the code and its history.

One example: GitHub Pages, according to the GitHub documentation (24/10/2026):

it is a static site hosting service: it publishes the HTML, CSS and JavaScript files of a GitHub repository;
with GitHub’s free plan, it is available for public repositories: your code and its history can then be read by everyone;
the default address looks like https://<ton-nom>.github.io/<nom-du-dépôt>;
when a site is visited, the visitor’s IP address is recorded and stored for security purposes.

Other hosts exist, with their own free or paid plans: their conditions must be read as of today’s date, before choosing.

Do it together

1Step 1: The decision, on paper

In your journal:

GOING ONLINE: [name of the tool]
Who needs to access it: [me / other people, which ones]
Does the data need to be shared between these people: [yes / no]
What would become public: [the page / the code and its history]
My decision: [stay local / publish / a shared tool, later], on [date]

For the club’s loan logbook: Lou is the only one who keeps the logbook, on her computer. The right decision is to stay local.

2Step 2: The checklist, if you publish

Before any publication:

☐ no secret in the files or in the whole history of Git (lesson 6, step 3);
☐ no personal data in the files or in the history (lesson 6, step 3);
☐ the name and email address saved as the author of each version are ones you accept to make public: Git keeps them in the history, and the official Git book says this information is “immutably baked into” your commits (check them with the git log command);
☐ each outside service called by the page is intended (lesson 6, step 2);
☐ you have read the host’s conditions: what is public, what it records, what it costs;
☐ in France, a public site must make it possible to identify its owner and its host (legal notices, according to the CNIL and the French law of 21 June 2004 on trust in the digital economy): find out what this implies in your situation;
☐ you know how to unpublish.

Unpublishing a GitHub Pages site: on the repository’s main page, click Settings, then Pages in the sidebar. Under GitHub Pages, next to “Your site is live at”, open the ”…” menu, then choose Unpublish site. Careful: the site disappears, but the repository is not touched. If it is public, its code and its history stay readable; a secret already published must therefore be changed. And according to GitHub, a new deployment (for example a successful run of the repository’s workflow) puts the site back online.

3Step 3: Publish (optional)

If your decision is to publish, follow your host’s documentation, not a random tutorial. For GitHub Pages: docs.github.com, “GitHub Pages” section, “Getting started”. You can get help from your agent, in Manual mode, but you are the one who does the publishing: it is an action that leaves your computer.

Your turn

Fill in the going-online decision for your tool.
If you publish: go through the whole checklist, and write the date and the address in your journal.
If you stay local: write down why. It is a decision, not a giving up.

Check your work

It worked if:

your decision is written down, dated, with its reasons;
you know what would become public, and that browser data is not shared;
if you published: the checklist is ticked, and you know how to unpublish.

Common mistakes:

publishing “just to see”, with the full Git history, without having checked it;
believing an online logbook will be shared among everyone;
choosing a host on the strength of a tutorial, without reading its conditions;
forgetting that the host records information about visitors.

Keep it and pick it up later

Write in your journal the site’s address, the host, the date, and how to unpublish.
With each new published version, go through the checklist again.

Going further

optional

A tool shared between several people, with accounts and a database, is a real project: specification, security, personal data, costs. Run it with the method from module 6, and always start with the simplest version.

New words

5 words explained

Word	What it means
Going online	Making a page accessible on the Internet, at an address
Host	The service that keeps your files and serves them to visitors
Static site	A site made of files (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), with no server that computes anything on each visit
Public repository	A GitHub repository that anyone can read, code and history included
Unpublish	Take a site off the Internet (the repository’s code may stay visible)

To be checked: no publication was made for this lesson (it is a public action); the legal obligations of a public site are not detailed here.