An agency receives project briefs from potential clients through a public intake form. An AI pipeline automatically analyzes each brief to extract structured requirements, estimate cost and timeline, and assign a complexity score. The agency team manages the entire pipeline from a real-time internal dashboard.
Public Intake & AI Analysis Pipeline
Public Intake Form: A clean, accessible form where a prospective client submits: project title, description (rich text), budget range (dropdown tiers), timeline urgency, and contact info. Rate-limited (Upstash Redis) with proper input validation and error states.
AI Brief Analyzer: On submission, an async AI pipeline (any model/provider: OpenAI, Claude,
OpenRouter, Gemini, Groq, free-tier credits, open-source models, whatever works) that:
(a) Extracts a structured list of features/requirements from the description
(b) Classifies the project category (Web App, Mobile, AI/ML, Automation, Integration)
(c) Generates an estimated effort range in hours and a suggested tech stack
(d) Assigns a complexity score (1-5)
Store the raw brief and AI analysis as separate linked records.
Webhook Endpoint: A POST /api/webhooks/intake endpoint
that accepts a JSON brief payload with HMAC signature verification, simulating external sources
(Typeform, Zapier, etc.) feeding briefs into the same pipeline. Must process identically to form submissions.
Internal Dashboard & Pipeline Management
Auth & Roles: Email/password authentication. Two roles: Admin (full access, can assign briefs) and Reviewer (can view and add notes to assigned briefs only).
Pipeline Kanban: Briefs flow through stages: New → Under Review → Proposal Sent → Won → Archived. Drag-and-drop stage transitions with optimistic UI updates. Each stage change logs a timestamped event.
Brief Detail View: Original submission and full AI analysis side-by-side, internal notes thread (threaded comments between team members), assignment history, and stage timeline. Reviewer can override/edit AI-generated estimates with a reason field.
Real-Time Updates: When a new brief is submitted or a stage changes, all connected dashboard users see updates without refreshing. Use Server-Sent Events, polling, or WebSockets.
Analytics Dashboard: Overview: briefs by stage (bar chart), average AI complexity score over time, conversion rate (Won / Total), estimated revenue pipeline (sum of budget ranges for active briefs), top project categories. Use a charting library (Recharts, Chart.js, etc.).
Performance & Optimization
Database Performance: Proper indexing strategy on frequently queried fields. Use Prisma's
@index and composite indexes. Cursor-based pagination (not offset).
Explain indexing decisions in the README.
Caching Layer: Upstash Redis caching for dashboard analytics (with cache invalidation on state changes) and rate-limiting on the public form and webhook endpoint. Document cache invalidation strategy.
Frontend Optimization: Proper use of React Server Components vs. Client Components. Loading skeletons, suspense boundaries, and optimistic updates on the Kanban. No unnecessary client-side JavaScript for static content.
API Design: Clean RESTful endpoints with proper HTTP status codes, consistent error response format, and request validation via Zod or similar. No N+1 queries; use Prisma includes/joins deliberately.
Stack & Infrastructure
All services below are available on free tiers, zero cost to you.
Evaluation Criteria
What to Submit
- Deployed app URL (Vercel or equivalent).
- GitHub repository link (clean README with local setup instructions).
- Architecture write-up in the README: data model decisions, caching/invalidation strategy, AI pipeline design, what AI tools you used during development, and what you'd improve given more time.
A note on effort & fairness: This assessment is scoped to be completable in 2-3 days of focused work using AI-assisted development workflows. We are not asking for free labor. We are looking for signal that you can deliver a production-quality MVP under realistic constraints. All free-tier services are sufficient. If you're the right person, this is the kind of work you already enjoy doing.
