Your first task

Your first task in Black Box is the Landing Page Bootstrap — the Skill that shipped with v0.1 because it's the fastest way to feel the product's value. You tell your CEO what business you run; the team writes copy, picks a template, generates code, creates a GitHub repo, and deploys to Railway. You get a live URL.

Before you start

You should have finished the onboarding interview and be looking at the Boardroom. Your CEO has already suggested "I'll build your new landing page right now. Want to see it?" as the first move. Click Let's build it →.

If you skipped the suggestion, you can kick it off manually: in the Boardroom chat, say "build me a landing page for my business" and your CEO will pick up from there.

Step 1 — Connect the free services

Your CEO responds with two connection cards. They are:

• GitHub — where the code for your site will live. Free account, free repos.
• Railway — where the site will be hosted on a free tier. Gives you a .up.railway.app subdomain out of the box.

You don't need to know what GitHub or Railway are. The CEO frames them as "two free services I need to put your site online." If you already have accounts, you'll sign in with one click. If you don't, the signup flow is thirty seconds each.

Connecting GitHub

Click Connect with GitHub. A browser tab opens to GitHub's OAuth page. Click Authorize Black Box. The tab closes and the card in the Boardroom flips to green.

Black Box stores the token server-side, encrypted. We never see your password.

Connecting Railway

Railway doesn't offer a simple OAuth flow yet, so the CEO walks you through a short paste-the-token flow instead. Click Open Railway tokens. A tab opens to the right page. Sign up if needed, create a token named "Black Box," copy it, paste it back into Black Box. The card flips to green.

That's the only place you'll ever need to paste anything. Once both cards are green, the build starts automatically.

Step 2 — Watch the build

The Boardroom replaces the connection cards with a live build timeline. You can literally watch the team work:

Each step takes between 5 and 15 seconds. The whole timeline usually finishes in about 90 seconds. The evaluator checks the output before it shows you the URL — you won't see a page that doesn't build.

Step 3 — Visit your URL

When the build completes, a final card slides in:

Click the link. A new tab opens. You see a real, live, professional landing page about your business — with your name, a headline written from your onboarding answers, a contact form, and a footer. On a real URL. On the public internet.

This is the magic moment. It typically lands around the seven-minute mark from sign-in. No API keys, no prompt engineering, no deploy config, no setup wizard. You asked. The team delivered.

Iterating in place

You don't like the hero image, or the copy feels off, or you want a pricing section. Tell the CEO:

• "Make it bolder and darker."
• "Swap the hero image to something industry-specific."
• "Add a pricing section with three tiers."
• "The headline should focus on outcomes, not features."

The CEO hands the change to the Designer or Engineering specialist; they push a new build to Railway; the URL stays the same. Typical turnaround is 30 to 90 seconds per iteration.

What just happened under the hood

In plain terms, without the jargon:

• Your CEO read your Company Memory to get the business context.
• It delegated a research sub-task to the Designer ("pick a template that fits this industry").
• It delegated the code to the Engineering specialist (using a Next.js template baked into the Skill).
• It delegated repo creation and the first push to the Operations specialist via the GitHub API.
• Railway detected the push, built the site, and returned a URL.
• The CEO packaged the URL into a card and posted it to the Boardroom.

You never see the API calls, the git commits, or the build logs unless you ask. The CEO abstracts them all.

What could go wrong

• GitHub authorization times out. Refresh, click Connect with GitHub again. OAuth grants are idempotent; nothing breaks.
• Railway token paste fails. Copy it again from railway.app/account/tokens; paste is whitespace-sensitive.
• The build fails on Railway's side. The CEO translates the log into plain English and offers a fix — usually a one-click retry.
• You hate the page. Tell the CEO what you want differently. It iterates in place.

What's next after the page is live

With the landing page live, your CEO will typically propose the next move within a day or two:

• Add a lead-capture form — so the page converts, not just loads.
• Add a custom domain — replace the .up.railway.app URL with yours.
• Add SEO polish — title tags, meta, sitemap, structured data.
• Start outreach — once there's somewhere for leads to land.

Frequently asked

Do I need a paid plan?

No — GitHub and Railway are free. The credits are included in every Black Box tier.

No GitHub?

You'll create one in ninety seconds during the flow. Black Box opens the right page.

Custom domain?

Second step, after the first page is live. The Custom Domain Setup Skill handles it.

I hate the design.

Tell the CEO. The Designer iterates in place at the same URL.

Can I edit the code?

Yes. The repo is yours. Black Box merges cleanly or opens a PR.

Build failed — now what?

The CEO explains in plain English and offers a fix.

Key takeaways

• Your first task is the landing page — it's designed to be the magic moment.
• Two free connections: GitHub and Railway. One click and one paste.
• Seven minutes, live URL, no API keys, no setup.
• Iterate in place — "make it bolder" and the URL stays the same.

What to do next

• Understanding cards — how the UI surfaces work.
• The morning brief — what your team does overnight.
• How to build a landing page in 10 minutes with AI — deeper walkthrough.
• How to get AI to deploy code to Railway — the deploy story.