Sign-in, scores and the first leaderboard

The work: 24 March 2026 · Written 1 November 2026 · Entry 2 of 17

A race is more fun when your result is remembered. In the days after the first commit, the project gained sign-in with Firebase (23 March), a leaderboard (24 March), a full leaderboard page (25 March) and the backend support for a daily prompt (26 March).

Guests first

From the start the rule was that nobody has to sign up to play. A visitor plays as a guest with a generated name. Signing in with Google is optional, and it is what lets your results follow you from one device to another. Firebase handles the sign-in; the server turns a Firebase identity into its own short-lived token, and the browser keeps that token in memory only.

Signing in later does not throw away what a guest already did. Signing in with Google links the guest identity to the account instead of replacing it, so the guest's earlier results stay with the player.

The leaderboard

Today the leaderboard ranks net speed: words per minute counted from the correct letters only. That choice matters. If a mistake did not cost anything, the top of the list would belong to whoever typed fastest and most carelessly. Counting only correct letters means accuracy and speed both count.

A separate full page for the leaderboard followed a day later, so that the list could show more than the top few players and have room for filters such as solo or match, and today or all time.

The daily prompt

The backend also gained support for a daily prompt: one text for everybody on a given day, so that all players can compare results on the same text. The Daily button on the home page comes from that early work.