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Serverless Enrollment: From Idea to Production in 85 Minutes

• by Alien Brain Trust • AI Learning
Serverless Enrollment: From Idea to Production in 85 Minutes

Serverless Enrollment: From Idea to Production in 85 Minutes

Meta Description: Built a complete Azure Functions enrollment system with Airtable, GitHub API, and Key Vault in under 90 minutes. Here’s the time breakdown.

We built Learn Labs enrollment system today. End to end. From planning to deployment-ready code. Total time: 85 minutes.

That includes Azure Functions, Airtable integration, GitHub API automation, Azure Key Vault setup with tagging, and proper error handling. All running on Azure’s free tier at $0/month.

Here’s how we did it and what made it fast.

What We Built

The System:

  • Static enrollment form (Astro)
  • Azure Function (Node.js 18) for processing
  • Airtable API for enrollment storage
  • GitHub API for automatic repository invitations
  • Azure Key Vault for secret management with tagging strategy
  • AJAX submission with proper error handling

The Experience:

  1. User fills form at /enroll
  2. AJAX POST to /api/submit-enrollment
  3. Function validates input
  4. Creates Airtable record
  5. Sends GitHub invitation to base-bit/secure-prompt-vault
  6. Returns success/error response
  7. User stays on site (no redirect)

Implementation Stats:

  • 860+ lines of code
  • 8 files created/modified
  • 2 Linear issues completed (SAPB-49, SAPB-42)
  • 240 lines for the Azure Function alone
  • ~40 minutes to deploy (estimated)

Time Breakdown

Planning Phase: 15 minutes

  • Reviewed session plan
  • Confirmed Azure Functions approach
  • Verified Airtable API capabilities
  • Confirmed GitHub API invitation endpoint
  • Decision: Use Key Vault from day one (not env vars)

Core Implementation: 35 minutes

  • Azure Function scaffold: 5 minutes
  • Airtable integration: 10 minutes
  • GitHub API integration: 10 minutes
  • Error handling and validation: 10 minutes

Key Vault Setup: 20 minutes

  • Key Vault creation: 5 minutes
  • Secret creation with tags: 8 minutes
  • Managed Identity setup: 4 minutes
  • Environment variable configuration: 3 minutes

Frontend Work: 15 minutes

  • AJAX form conversion: 8 minutes
  • Success/error UI states: 5 minutes
  • Testing validation logic: 2 minutes

Documentation: 10 minutes (parallel with testing)

  • Created ENROLLMENT-SYSTEM-READY.md
  • Created KEY-VAULT-SETUP.md with tagging guide
  • Updated AZURE-STATIC-WEB-APPS-SETUP.md

What took longest: Key Vault documentation (20 minutes total). We documented the tagging strategy, expiration alerts, access policies, and cost monitoring because we’ll use this pattern for every Azure project going forward.

What was fastest: Azure Function core logic (10 minutes). The Airtable and GitHub APIs are both straightforward REST endpoints. No complex auth flows, no SDKs to learn.

Why It Was Fast

1. Clear Scope We knew exactly what we were building. No feature creep. No “wouldn’t it be cool if…” diversions. The session plan had:

  • Required fields (email, name, GitHub username)
  • Two API integrations (Airtable, GitHub)
  • One deployment target (Azure Static Web Apps)
  • Success criteria (enrollment + invitation)

2. Right Platform Azure Static Web Apps integrates Functions natively. No separate service. No complex routing. Just drop an api/ directory and it works. GitHub Actions workflow auto-configured.

3. Simple APIs Both Airtable and GitHub APIs are well-documented and predictable:

  • Airtable: POST to /v0/{baseId}/Enrollments with fields object
  • GitHub: PUT to /repos/{owner}/{repo}/collaborators/{username} with permission level

No OAuth flows. No webhooks. No complex state management.

4. Managed Identity from Start We didn’t start with environment variables and “plan to upgrade later.” We went straight to Key Vault with Managed Identity. This added 15 minutes up front but saves months of security debt.

5. Proper Error Handling Up Front We didn’t build the happy path and come back for errors. Every API call has try/catch. Every validation returns a clear message. The function logs errors with context.

This took an extra 10 minutes during implementation but means we won’t debug production issues for hours.

Cost Analysis: $0/Month

Azure Free Tier:

  • Static Web Apps: Free
  • Azure Functions: 1M executions/month free
  • Key Vault: 10,000 operations/month free
  • Bandwidth: 100 GB/month free

Our Expected Usage:

  • Enrollments: ~150/month (optimistic)
  • Key Vault calls: 450 operations/month (3 secrets × 150 enrollments)
  • With 5-minute caching: ~4,320 operations/month worst case
  • Functions executions: 150/month

Reality Check: We’re using 0.015% of the Functions free tier and 4.3% of Key Vault free tier. We could scale 100x before paying anything.

When We’d Start Paying:

  • 1M+ enrollments/month (not happening)
  • Or if we add compute-heavy operations (not planned)

Lessons Learned

1. Scope Matters More Than Speed We could have built this in 60 minutes by skipping Key Vault and using environment variables. But we’d inherit technical debt and spend hours migrating later. The extra 25 minutes bought us:

  • Centralized secret management
  • Expiration tracking
  • Audit logging
  • Easy rotation
  • Tagging for multi-project organization

2. Documentation During Implementation We documented Key Vault setup while implementing it. Not after. This caught gaps in our understanding and made the implementation clearer. The documentation took 10 minutes total because we wrote it when context was fresh.

3. AJAX Over Redirects The enrollment form originally redirected to Airtable’s form. We converted it to AJAX submission. This took 15 minutes but gives us:

  • User stays on our site
  • Custom success/error messages
  • GitHub invitation status feedback
  • Analytics on submission attempts

4. Validation on Both Sides Client-side validation (instant feedback) plus server-side validation (security). The Azure Function rejects invalid emails, checks GitHub username format, and validates required fields. This prevents malformed data in Airtable.

5. 5-Minute Cache = 99% Cost Reduction The Azure Function caches Key Vault secrets for 5 minutes. Expected impact:

  • Without cache: 10,000 operations/month (1 enrollment every 5 min × 3 secrets)
  • With cache: 150 operations/month
  • Cost saved: Still $0, but protects against rate limits

What We’d Do Differently

Testing: We built the system in 85 minutes but haven’t deployed yet. Real test comes when we submit the first enrollment. We documented a test plan (ENROLL-FORM-TEST-PLAN.md) but haven’t run it.

Deployment estimate: 40 minutes (Key Vault setup + Static Web App creation + first deployment + testing).

Rate Limiting: The function has no rate limiting. This is fine for Learn Labs (low volume expected) but would need work for high-traffic scenarios. Azure Functions supports rate limiting via API Management, but that adds complexity.

Email Confirmation: Right now users get a success message but no email confirmation. We rely on the GitHub invitation email. A proper onboarding email would improve the experience. We’d add SendGrid integration (also free tier) in a future iteration.

Files Created

Azure Function:

  • api/submit-enrollment/index.js (240 lines)
  • api/submit-enrollment/function.json (14 lines)
  • api/package.json (22 lines)

Configuration:

  • staticwebapp.config.json (29 lines)
  • .env.example (8 lines)

Documentation:

  • .github/ENROLLMENT-SYSTEM-READY.md (219 lines)
  • .github/KEY-VAULT-SETUP.md (479 lines)
  • .github/AZURE-STATIC-WEB-APPS-SETUP.md (updated)

Frontend:

  • src/pages/enroll.astro (updated, 653 lines total)

Next Steps

We’re ready to deploy. Estimated 40-minute deployment process:

  1. Create Azure Static Web App (10 min)
  2. Set up Key Vault (20 min)
  3. Test enrollment (5 min)
  4. Fix any issues (5 min buffer)

Once deployed, we’ll monitor for the first few enrollments and iterate based on real usage.

Takeaway

85 minutes from idea to deployment-ready code isn’t magic. It’s the result of:

  • Clear scope
  • Right platform choice
  • Simple API integrations
  • Security-first mindset
  • Documentation during implementation

The extra time we spent on Key Vault setup and proper error handling means we won’t debug production issues for hours or migrate from env vars to secrets management later.

Fast ≠ Cutting corners. Fast = Doing it right the first time.

Related: In the next post, we’ll compare Azure Functions vs Vercel vs Netlify and explain why we chose Azure for this project. Free tier limits matter.