Bolt Launch Readiness Checklist for Indie Hackers

Launch readiness is broader than "are there vulnerabilities?". It is the full set of things that make an app safe, stable, and discoverable on day one: server-side checks, cost controls, error handling, and the boring technical layer search engines expect. Bolt gives you a working app quickly; the items below are what you add before launch so a spike of traffic doesn't turn into a spike of incidents.

1. Put rate limits on anything expensive or sensitive

A Bolt app that calls an AI model, sends email, accepts uploads, or exposes auth has endpoints that cost money or enable abuse. Without rate limiting, one script — or one launch-day Hacker News thread — can drain your API budget or brute-force a login.

• Apply per-IP and per-account limits on auth, signup, password reset, upload, and any AI or generation route.
• Return a clear 429 with a retry hint instead of silently failing or timing out.
• Set hard ceilings on AI usage so a runaway loop can't run up a four-figure bill overnight.

2. Get environment variables and keys right

Bolt projects are usually Vite-based, which means any variable exposed for the client ends up in the shipped bundle. The boundary between public and private keys is the boundary between safe and compromised.

• Keep secret keys, service-role keys, and webhook secrets server-side only — never in a public/VITE_ variable.
• Confirm the values in your deploy provider match what the code expects, so a missing variable doesn't silently disable auth or billing.
• Rotate any key that ever appeared in the repo or git history, then verify nothing in the client bundle references it.

3. Validate payments and webhooks

If your Bolt app charges money, the webhook handler is load-bearing. AI-generated billing code often parses the JSON body before verifying the signature, trusts amounts from the client, or processes the same event twice.

1. Read the raw request body and verify the provider signature before doing anything else.
2. Derive the purchased plan and price from the provider's line items, not from values sent by the browser.
3. Make handlers idempotent so a retried or replayed webhook can't double-grant access or double-charge.

4. Add real error states and fail closed

Generated UIs tend to render the happy path beautifully and ignore everything else. Users will hit empty lists, slow networks, expired sessions, and failed payments on day one.

• Add loading, empty, and error states to every data-driven view so the app never shows a blank or half-rendered screen.
• When an action fails, tell the user clearly and keep their input — don't drop them into a dead end.
• Make sure a failed auth or permission check blocks the action rather than letting the UI proceed optimistically.

5. Fix broken links and check mobile responsiveness

Two of the most visible day-one problems are also the easiest to miss in a desktop preview: dead links and a layout that breaks on a phone. Most of your launch traffic will be on mobile.

• Crawl the app for broken internal links, 404s, and buttons that go nowhere.
• Test core flows — signup, checkout, the main feature — on a real phone viewport, not just a resized window.
• Check that text doesn't overflow, modals are dismissible, and tap targets are usable on small screens.

6. Ship technical SEO: robots.txt, sitemap, metadata

If you want search engines and AI assistants to understand and surface your product, give them the basics. Bolt rarely adds these automatically.

• Add a robots.txt that allows crawling and points to your sitemap.
• Generate a sitemap.xml that lists your real public pages.
• Set a unique title, description, and canonical URL per page, plus OpenGraph tags for link previews.
• Use semantic HTML with a single H1 per page so the structure is machine-readable.

7. Mind analytics, privacy and GDPR basics

The moment you collect an email or set a tracking cookie, you have privacy obligations. You don't need an enterprise compliance program to launch, but you do need the basics in place.

• Publish a privacy page that says what you collect and why.
• If you use analytics or cookies that require consent in your users' regions, handle consent honestly.
• Avoid logging passwords, tokens, or full request bodies; scrub personal data from your error tracker.

Going through this list turns a Bolt prototype into something you can launch without holding your breath. The work is mechanical and repeatable, which means you can automate most of the review and spend your energy on the product.