Some checklists deserve a project tool. A launch, a handover, a move, an event run sheet: those are a list of things that have to be true by Friday, and the cost of putting them in a project tool is that four people now need an account, a seat, and a reason to open yet another app.
The alternative is a link. Open it, tick a box, everyone sees it.
What it looks like
A live one: seven things a small publisher has to finish before a book ships. Tick something and it stays ticked for the next person to open the link, with a progress bar that moves.
Anyone with the link can also add an item, which is usually the point. The thing that gets forgotten is the thing nobody had permission to write down.
The prompt
Make me a shared launch checklist page. Seven items to start, each with an optional note underneath, a checkbox, and a progress percentage at the top.
Everyone who opens the link sees the same list and the same ticks, updating live. Anyone can add an item at the bottom.
Use the hostus.data SDK: data.watch("tasks", render), data.add and data.set. Seed the seven items only if the list is empty, and guard the seed so the polling callback cannot run it twice. One HTML file. Publish to Hostus and give me the link.The seeding guard is the detail worth keeping. Without it the list is polled, found empty, and seeded again before the first write lands.
Where this beats a project tool, and where it does not
| Shared page | Project tool | |
|---|---|---|
| Who can open it | Anyone with the link | People you invited |
| Cost per extra person | Nothing | A seat, usually |
| Assignees, due dates, boards | No | Yes |
| Notifications | No | Yes |
| Lives after the project | It is a file | Inside the tool |
If the list needs owners, dates and reminders, use the project tool. If it needs to exist by lunchtime and be readable by a printer, a freelancer and your co-founder, use the link.
Keeping it private to the team
A public link is public: anyone who has it can open and tick. For a launch list that is usually fine and it is why it is fast.
When it is not fine, the same page can be a private document shared with named people, or put in a shared folder where the team already has access. The storage follows the document's permissions, so who can read the page is who can write to the list.
Good to know before you switch
The storage runs because the page is hosted on Hostus: the server is what decides who each reader is. Download the file and open it from your desktop and the list is empty. The HTML is yours either way, and any host will serve the page, but the shared part is ours to run.
There is no spreadsheet view of the records. You read them on the page, or you ask Claude, which has a tool for it. If a dashboard with filters is what you need, this is not that yet.