The author of the tutorial is Oluyemi Olususi, and he guides readers on how to set up a Laravel API project using CircleCI for continuous integration. The goal is to automatically run tests for the application once an update is pushed to a code repository like GitHub. The author also sets up notifications via Twilio SMS to send messages to a specific phone number when the build is successful or fails, ensuring that the developer can stay informed about the status of their builds. The tutorial assumes readers have a basic understanding of building applications with Laravel and has prerequisites such as a Twilio account, CircleCI account, Composer globally installed, and knowledge of building applications with Laravel.