What is an MVP in Software? Build One with a Free API

What is an MVP (minimum viable product), and how is it different from an API? In this MVP tutorial for beginners we build an MVP app step by step: "Will it rain?", a tiny real web app using the free Open-Meteo weather API (no API key), a small Node.js + Express backend and a plain HTML/JS frontend. Every line of code is shown and explained. CHAPTERS 0:00 The finished app 0:26 What is an MVP? 1:17 What is an API? 2:07 MVP vs API: the difference 2:51 Planning the MVP scope 3:38 Project setup 4:04 Backend: server.js 6:25 Frontend: HTML 6:46 Frontend: app.js 7:18 Styling 7:36 Run it 7:53 Testing + error handling 8:40 Deploying (briefly) 9:09 Recap WHAT YOU'LL LEARN MVP = minimum viable product: the smallest real product that tests whether people want an idea API = application programming interface: how programs talk to each other An API is a part; an MVP is a whole product, and it can use APIs How to scope an MVP, proxy two APIs through your own endpoint, and handle errors (400 / 404 / 502) APIs USED (free, no key) Open-Meteo Forecast API: https://open-meteo.com/en/docs Open-Meteo Geocoding API: https://open-meteo.com/en/docs/geocod... Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (https://open-meteo.com/), licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.... The free API is for non-commercial use and has rate limits (under 10,000 calls/day); see https://open-meteo.com/en/terms RUN IT Node 18+ required. Create the files below, then: npm install && npm start then open http://localhost:3000 FULL CODE Every file is shown in full on screen: package.json, server.js, public/index.html, public/app.js and public/style.css (about 110 lines in total). Topics covered: what is an MVP, MVP vs API, minimum viable product explained, how to build an MVP app, MVP examples, what is an API, free weather API, Node.js and Express project, JavaScript weather app #MVP #API #WebDevelopment