Tessera documentation
Tessera is a free, open-source JavaScript framework for building eLearning courses that run and track correctly in any SCORM or xAPI compliant LMS. Write courses by hand, or describe what you want and let your AI assistant build them. These docs walk the whole journey in order.
How authoring works
The recommended workflow, using an AI assistant:
- Create a workspace, one folder that holds all your courses.
- Open your AI assistant in it (Claude Code, Codex, or your agent of choice) and describe what you want in plain English.
- Watch the live preview. The course runs in your browser while you work, updating as the assistant writes it.
- Iterate until the course is what you want. Validation and accessibility checks run on every build.
- Export. One command packages the course for SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, cmi5, xAPI, or a plain website.
- Upload the package to your LMS.
Tessera courses are plain code, so you can write them by hand like any JavaScript project. AI assistants are especially good at it: you describe what you want, they build it, and you review and edit. There is no standard set of components you have to use in your courses.
Tessera uses the same workflows software developers use every day. If they're new to you, that's fine. Your assistant is familiar with them.
The guides
- Getting started: install what you need and create your first workspace.
- What is a workspace: how your courses, shared design system, and dependencies are organised.
- Your workspace on GitHub: version control, collaboration, and rollback.
- Authoring with AI: the describe–preview–iterate loop, and how to ask for what you want.
- Quizzes & interactions: question types, scoring, and custom interactions.
- How SCORM & xAPI work: what the runtime tracks for you, and how completion is decided.
- Validation & accessibility: the checks that run on every build, and the deep audit.
- Exporting your course: packaging for each standard, and testing before you ship.
- Under the hood: course structure, components, hooks, and configuration.
If you only read one thing
Go to Getting started. Ten minutes gets you a running course in your browser, and the rest of these docs will make more sense with one in front of you.