Backend God Roadmap

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Understand how the internet and servers actually work before writing code.

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How does the internet work?

  • What is a packet and how data travels across networks
  • What is an IP address and how devices are identified
  • TCP vs UDP — difference and when each is used
  • What is a port number and why it matters (80, 443, 3000 etc.)
  • What is a client and what is a server
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HTTP vs HTTPS — Request/Response cycle

  • HTTP methods — GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, PATCH and what each means
  • What is a request header and a response header
  • What is a status code — 200, 201, 400, 401, 403, 404, 500
  • What is HTTPS and why HTTP alone is insecure
  • What is SSL/TLS at a high level (encryption in transit)
  • What is a request body and when it is used
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How browsers work

  • What happens step by step when you type a URL and hit Enter
  • What is rendering — how HTML/CSS/JS becomes a page
  • What are browser dev tools and how to use the Network tab
  • What is a cookie and what is local storage
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DNS

  • What is a domain name and who owns it
  • What is a DNS resolver and what it does
  • What is an A record, CNAME, MX record
  • What is TTL in DNS context
  • How DNS resolution flows from browser to root server to your IP
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Hosting basics

  • What is a VPS vs shared hosting vs cloud hosting
  • What is a server process and what it means for your app to "run"
  • What is a region and why it affects latency
  • What is an IP address vs a domain name in hosting context
Project spec

Draw (on paper or Excalidraw) the full journey of a request from browser to server and back. Label every step — DNS, TCP, HTTP, server, response. Write one paragraph explaining it in plain English.

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Basic Linux/terminal commands

  • Navigating — pwd, ls, cd, cd ..
  • Files — touch, mkdir, rm, rm -rf, cp, mv
  • Reading files — cat, less, head, tail
  • Permissions — chmod basics, what 755 and 644 mean
  • Processes — ps, kill, what a running process is
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Git fundamentals

  • What is version control and why it exists
  • git init, git status, git add, git commit
  • What is a commit hash and why commits are immutable
  • git log — reading history
  • git diff — seeing what changed
  • .gitignore — what to exclude and why (node_modules, .env)
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GitHub workflow

  • git push, git pull, git clone
  • What is a branch and why you never work directly on main
  • git checkout -b, git merge, git rebase basics
  • What is a pull request and how code review works
  • Resolving a merge conflict step by step
Project spec

Create a GitHub repo. Write a plain text file documenting your Phase 1.1 notes. Commit it with a proper message. Create a branch, edit the file, push the branch, open a pull request, and merge it into main yourself.