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71 lines
4.2 KiB
Markdown
71 lines
4.2 KiB
Markdown
# Executive Summary — InboxIntel Discovery Blueprint
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**Ambition:** become one of the best **email search and management** experiences available
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— fast, scalable, secure, intuitive — with **AI used only where it clearly beats
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traditional approaches**, running **locally and privately**, and **never as a hard
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dependency**.
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## The opportunity (the wedge)
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The market has split in two, and both halves leave a gap:
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- **AI, but cloud** (Gmail/Gemini, Outlook/Copilot, Shortwave, Spark) — useful, but your
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mail is processed off-device.
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- **Private, but little/no AI** (Proton, Thunderbird, Fastmail).
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**No mainstream product owns "genuinely useful AI that runs on your own machine."**
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InboxIntel can — and it already has the seams for it. Combined with three more openings —
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**approachable power-search as the home screen**, **explainability** ("why this matched /
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was categorised"), and **fast *and* friendly** (Superhuman is fast-but-intimidating; casual
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apps are friendly-but-slow) — this is a defensible, differentiated position.
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> **Positioning:** *Make search the fastest way to think about your inbox, with AI that runs
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> on your own machine and always explains itself. Powerful for pros, simple for anyone.*
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## Current state — verdict: extend, don't rewrite
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A clean, secure, well-tested .NET 8 / React foundation with **real Postgres full-text
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search** and **an AI provider abstraction already in place** (`NullAiProvider` /
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`OllamaProvider` / `OpenAiProvider`). The gaps are exactly where the product wants to win:
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relevance-ranked multi-mode search, a richer AI contract (embeddings/extraction),
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conversation intelligence, and a modern approachable UX. **None require a rewrite.**
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## Design direction (from the interview)
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Notion/Arc-**professional**, "anyone can pick it up": **pointer-first & discoverable**
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(palette/shortcuts as accelerators), **balanced density**, **dark-first** (genuine light
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too), **subtle motion**, **green `#3ba31f`** accent, clean rounded line icons, **fully
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responsive** desktop→mobile. The pivotal decision — *discoverable-first over keyboard-first*
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— reframes search from "a syntax you learn" into "an inviting, assisted experience."
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## Search & AI in a nutshell
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- **Search:** a 4-layer engine — Structured → **Lexical+Ranking** (always on) → Semantic
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(pgvector) → AI-assisted (NL / ask-your-inbox / explanations) — with **hybrid RRF ranking**
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replacing today's date-only sort. Degrades gracefully with AI off.
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- **AI:** extend the abstraction to embeddings + structured output behind a task facade with
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**config-driven model routing**; on the **RTX 3080 (10 GB)**, **Qwen2.5-7B** (warm) +
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**nomic-embed-text** (hot) do most jobs, vision on-demand. Traditional-first everywhere;
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every AI feature has a non-AI fallback.
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## Roadmap shape
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**v1.0** redesign + world-class *deterministic* search + AI foundation → **v1.1** assisted
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search & productivity → **v1.2** semantic tier → **v2.0** ambitious AI (RAG, vision, graph)
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→ **v3.0** platform (collaboration, rules, plugins, mobile). Sequenced so **deterministic
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value ships before AI**, infrastructure is amortised, and **every release is complete with
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AI disabled.**
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## Key risks
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Migration of a full redesign (**mitigated by strangler + `ui.v2` flag**), VRAM limits
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(**7–8B sweet spot + load policy**), prompt injection (**AI advisory-only, never acts**), and
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scope creep (**value/effort-sequenced roadmap**). See [11](11-risks-and-future.md).
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## Recommendation
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**Proceed to v1.0.0** — the redesign, ranked/assisted search, and AI foundation. It's the
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biggest quality jump, it's low-risk and deterministic, and it stands entirely on its own
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without AI. Then layer local, private, explainable AI in value order.
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---
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### Read the full blueprint
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[01 Architecture](01-architecture-review.md) · [02 Competitors](02-competitor-analysis.md) ·
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[03 Users](03-user-research.md) · [04 UX + Design System](04-ux-redesign-and-design-system.md) ·
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[05 Search](05-search-redesign.md) · [06 AI Strategy](06-ai-strategy.md) ·
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[07 AI Features](07-ai-feature-catalogue.md) · [08 Architecture](08-technical-architecture.md) ·
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[09 Roadmap](09-roadmap.md) · [10 Git Plan](10-git-plan.md) ·
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[11 Risks & Future](11-risks-and-future.md) · [Design Brief](00-design-brief.md)
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