Edit wiki/test-demo-before-presenting.md — Rookie Mistakes & Gotchas

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# test the full demo before presenting

## what happened

MAKE SURE THE THING WORKS BEFORE GOING INTO THE PRESENTATION. tested individual pieces, assumed they'd work together. they didn't.

## why it's a gotcha

integration bugs only show up when you run the full flow. you'll discover that step 3 breaks step 5 right in front of the judges. individual components working does not mean the system works. [[ai-rot|AI-generated code]] you didn't test is a common cause — and [[it-works-on-my-machine|environmental differences]] between your machine and the demo machine make it worse.

## the fix

run the complete user flow at least twice before presenting. start from a clean state each time — [[restart-server-before-demo|restart services]] to make sure you're not running stale code. if something breaks, you want to find it now, not on stage. and have a [[no-backup-plan-for-failed-demo|backup plan]] for when it breaks anyway. testing the demo is one thing; [[practice-presentation-once|testing the presentation itself]] is another.