📦 00 — Start Here

Welcome! Complete this section BEFORE the first session on Sat 23 May 2026.

If you can finish setup before Week 1, you’ll spend the first session learning AWS — not fighting your laptop. Block 1-2 hours this week and knock it all out.

✅ Pre-bootcamp checklist

Tick these off in order:

Step 1: Create your AWS account (15-20 min, including verification wait)
Step 2: Set up GitHub (10 min)
Step 3: Install Python + VS Code (15 min)
Step 4: Run the 60-second smoke test (3 min)
Step 5: Join the WhatsApp group (1 min)
Step 6: Star + fork this repo (1 min)
Step 7: Introduce yourself in the WhatsApp group with your name, city, and what you hope to learn

Total time: ~50 minutes. Maybe an hour if AWS verification takes long.

📄 Read these before Week 1

📕 Pre-Bootcamp Setup Guide (PDF) — printable, 12 pages, every step with screenshots
📕 Course Curriculum (PDF) — what you’ll learn week-by-week

🚦 60-second smoke test

Run this in your terminal to confirm everything is installed and working. If all four commands return a version number, you’re good for Week 1.

python --version       # should show Python 3.10 or newer
git --version          # should show git version 2.x or newer
aws --version          # should show aws-cli/2.x
code --version         # should show VS Code version

If any of them fails with “command not found”, go back to the relevant setup doc.

🆘 Stuck on setup?

Read this first: most setup issues fall into 3 categories:

AWS account stuck “verifying” — see aws-account-setup.md for the Telecel/MTN troubleshooting steps
Python or pip command not found — usually a PATH issue. See python-vscode-setup.md
Git SSH key not working — see github-setup.md, the SSH section

If those don’t help: post a screenshot in the WhatsApp group. Use the group, not DM — likely 5 other people have the same problem and your question helps everyone.

🎯 What we’ll cover the first session

On Saturday 23rd May at 3 PM GMT:

Welcome + a tour of this repo
AWS Console live tour — what every menu actually does
The 5 services you’ll see most: EC2, S3, IAM, VPC, CloudWatch
Lab 1 walkthrough — building your portfolio site on S3 + CloudFront
Q&A

The session is 2 hours. Be on time — the recording is good, but live questions are gold.

📅 What you commit to

This bootcamp works if you commit to:

⏰ 2 hours of live session every Saturday (recorded if you miss)
🛠️ 4-6 hours of hands-on lab work between sessions
💬 1 commit per week to your fork of this repo with your lab solutions
🙋 Show up in the WhatsApp group — answer someone else’s question once a week

Total: 6-8 hours per week, for 4 weeks. That’s it. Not 40 hours. Not a year. Six to eight hours.

⬅️ Back to repo