A guide first, AI later
Phase 1 has no language model. A static guide tests the demand and the content for about €10, before an assistant that answers questions with cited sources is added in phase 2.
projects / ankommen-in-paderborn
Ankommen in Paderborn
A free, unofficial guide in English and German for international students arriving in Paderborn, in which every fact links to an official source.
- role
- Solo developer
- stack
- Astro, React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, EN / DE
- status
- first release Dec 2026
[Screenshot: guide home]
01 / the problem
The problem
Universität Paderborn has about 16,000 students, 17.8% of them international (facts and figures), and welcomed a record 587 international first-year students in winter 2024/25 (university news). What they need to know is spread across university, city, Studierendenwerk and foreigners’ office pages, mostly in German. Appointments at the foreigners’ office can take weeks, so arriving without the right document costs real time.
02 / what i built
What I built
Phase 1 is a static guide, organised by time: before arrival, the first week, the first month and later.
- Twelve topics so far, each in English and German, from the airport to Paderborn to health insurance, the address registration and a bank account
- A personal checklist with calendar reminders
- Every fact linked to an official source: university, city, Studierendenwerk, student union or federal and state law
- A content check that keeps the English and German versions in step and flags missing sources and outdated facts
- A monitor that detects when an official source page changes
- Unit tests, plus accessibility (axe, WCAG 2.2 AA) and keyboard tests in Playwright, all in CI
It is not legal advice, a form-filling service or a replacement for the International Office.
03 / decisions
Decisions
Static pages, little JavaScript
The guide is Markdown content, so it is an Astro site with prerendered pages that search engines can index, React islands only for the interactive parts, and Tailwind CSS. Analytics will use Cloudflare Web Analytics, which sets no cookies.
Open licences so other cities can reuse it
The code is MIT, the guide content CC BY-SA 4.0 so that improvements stay open, and the office data CC0, all following the REUSE specification. Another university town can copy the guide and adapt it.
04 / outcome
Outcome
Twelve topics are published in both languages, and the first release is planned for December 2026 on Cloudflare Pages. After launch I plan to show the usage numbers to the International Office and ask for its support. [What you learned so far.]