Build a Résumé in Your Browser: Three Templates, Four Print Checks and a JSON Backup

Every CV builder wants your email address, your job history and your phone number before it shows you a page. The OnePassApps CV Builder takes a narrower line: it runs in the browser tab, it tells you what is still missing before you print, and it hands you a JSON file you can re-import later.

I work on OnePassApps, so everything below was measured on the live app today - the panel copy is quoted from the running page, and the export is a file I pulled off disk from it.

What the page actually shows

The route is /apps/cv-builder, and the page title reads "CV Builder — Create and print a résumé — OnePassApps". The line under the tool label says:

Write your own story, choose a template, and print or save a PDF locally.

Four numbered sections make up the form: 01 About you, 02 Experience, 03 Education, 04 Skills. The About you block ships six fields - Full name, Headline, Email, Phone, Location, Website or portfolio - plus a Profile textarea whose hint reads "A short summary in your own words." Experience starts with an "Add role" button ("Add a role, project or volunteering experience."), Education with "Add qualification" ("Add a degree, course or certificate."), and Skills is one box whose hint says "Separate skills with commas or new lines."

A counter above the fields reads "0 of 6 ready" on an empty CV, and the preview panel reads "A4 · Empty" on the same empty CV.

Three templates

The TEMPLATE block offers exactly three, as radio buttons rather than a dropdown:

• Classic - "Serif, traditional"
• Modern - "Sans, left rule"
• Editorial - "Large name"

I clicked each one in the running page and each took the selection. The template name also travels in the export: the file I pulled holds "template": "classic", which is the one that ships selected.

The four checks that run before you print

The panel labelled BEFORE YOU PRINT is the part worth stealing from. On an empty CV it reads:

01  Add your name                          (needs attention)
02  Email is blank or valid                (ready)
03  Every entry has a role                 (ready)
04  Fits on one A4 page                    (ready)

And it is live, not static copy. I clicked "Add role" to create an empty role entry, and check 03 changed in place to "An entry needs a role or qualification" with the status "(needs attention)".

Below it the page is straight about what it cannot control: "Paper size and margins (A4, 18 mm) can be changed in your browser’s print dialog."

The export is a real, versioned JSON file

The BACKUP block holds "Import résumé JSON" and "Export résumé JSON". I pressed Export on an empty CV and a genuine file landed on disk: resume.json, 357 bytes, application/json. It is versioned - "version": 1 - and shaped like this:

{
  "version": 1,
  "cv": {
    "name": "", "headline": "", "email": "", "phone": "",
    "location": "", "website": "", "summary": "", "skills": "",
    "template": "classic",
    "experience": [
      { "role": "", "employer": "", "period": "", "details": "" }
    ],
    "education": []
  }
}

It keeps the empty strings rather than dropping the keys, so an unfinished CV round-trips. The app's own guide says the same from the other side: "JSON export preserves incomplete fields and entries."

Import takes "A file exported from CV Builder · up to 2 MiB · it stays in this tab", and the file picker is labelled "Choose résumé JSON file".

What it will not do for you

The guide page for this app is unusually blunt about scope. CV Builder "does not generate qualifications, write with AI or assign an ATS score." "There is no automatic storage or cross-device sync.", and "Navigation or reload clears the current session unless you have exported an editable JSON backup." DOCX export, template customisation and hiring or ATS-performance guarantees are "outside scope". Printing is the browser's own job: open Print, choose a printer or Save as PDF, then "Review pagination in print preview".

Does anything leave the tab?

The page says "Nothing leaves this tab." I traced that rather than repeating it. A network trace over one session recorded 117 requests, and not one of them carried a request body. 101 went to app.onepassapps.com, 10 to clerk.onepassapps.com, 3 to api.onepassapps.com and 1 to static.cloudflareinsights.com; the only other two were blob: URLs, which never leave the tab. The app shell, the sign-in helper, the API and the analytics beacon - and no résumé content in any of them.

The app itself is free. The guide's FAQ answers "CV Builder runs in your browser with no account or payment details, and it never uses OnePassApps credits." The page carries the same promotional block as the rest of the site: "Standard is free right now" at $0 / month, "100,000 credits every 30 days", no end date set, no card required, and no automatic paid subscription.

Try it

Open the CV Builder - read the app guide

I work on OnePassApps. If the app does something this post does not describe, say so and I will correct it.