Waitlist & Pre-Launch

VibeKit provides a pre-launch audience capture system designed to build momentum and collect verified customer emails before your product goes live.

Activating Waitlist Mode

You can toggle your entire application into pre-launch mode by changing a single key in PRODUCT.json:

{
  "features": {
    "waitlist": true
  }
}

When waitlist mode is active:

Standard user registration is hidden or locked down.
Marketing pages automatically swap public signup CTAs for waitlist capture forms.
If you later decide to pause waitlist collection without opening registration, set modules.waitlist: false in Admin Settings.

Landing Page Email Capture

Waitlist signup components integrate cleanly into your marketing hero and landing pages:

Clean Single-Input Form: Visitors enter their email and receive instant inline confirmation.
Bot & Spam Filtering: Built-in rate limiting and disposable email domain checks prevent spam bots from inflating your subscriber numbers.
Queue Positions: Optionally display a subscriber queue number (e.g. You are #142 in line) to encourage early sharing.

Automated Welcome & Confirmation Emails

Every new waitlist submission can automatically dispatch a confirmation email using packages/mail:

Branded Templates: Pre-configured React Email templates match your typography and brand color scheme.
Deliverability: Works with Resend, Postmark, SendGrid, Amazon SES, or local console logging during development.
Zero-Credential Sandbox: In local development (MOCK_SERVICES=true), welcome emails log directly to your terminal without sending real emails.

Managing Subscribers & CSV Export

Site administrators manage all waitlist entries at /app/admin/waitlist:

Real-Time Subscriber Count: Track total signups and daily growth rate.
Subscriber Table: Search, filter by email domain, and delete invalid or test entries.
Instant CSV Export: Click Export CSV to download your complete subscriber roster, formatted for direct import into marketing tools like Loops, Resend, or Mailchimp.

Transitioning from Waitlist to Public Launch

When your product is ready for paying customers, transition to live launch in 3 steps:

Disable Waitlist Mode: Change features.waitlist from true to false in PRODUCT.json.
Update Primary Call to Action: Switch your homepage buttons to point to /pricing or /auth/signup.
Notify Early Subscribers: Export your verified subscriber CSV from /app/admin/waitlist and email your launch announcement.

Instructing Your Agent to Customize the Waitlist

Ask your coding agent to adjust waitlist settings or customize the signup form:

Help me configure the waitlist for my upcoming launch:
1. Enable waitlist mode in PRODUCT.json.
2. Customize the waitlist hero headline and confirmation message.
3. Test that signups appear in /app/admin/waitlist and test the CSV export.
4. Verify with $verify-changes.