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MVP Scope & Open Decisions

Sources (fetched 2026-06-25): - "What we are building — end of week 4" Notion page (3894dccd9d8b8055a0a9ed38ed43eb88) - "Product Features" Notion database (e9f4dccd9d8b8315b895816213227423) — sprint-planning skeleton for the build phase; rows fill in from kickoff (2026-06-29) onward.

MVP (ships ~Oct 2026)

Full reading loop: Home (heroed Journey + carousels), Explore (graph traversal + search), reading screen with audio read-aloud, community reflections (ambient presence), and saved items. Plus full CMS and content pipeline.

Critical constraint (updated 2026-06-29): Auth + account creation are in V1, but no monetization — no paywall, subscription, or content gating at launch. Gates are out of V1. Guests can use the full app; an account is for persisting personal data (Soul Map). Architecture must still cleanly support a Phase 2 paywall/tiering without a rebuild. (This reverses the earlier "no auth at MVP" assumption — source: Lina Wiezkowiak, Slack 2026-06-29, raw/slack-auth-scope-2026-06-29.md. See 00-constraints.md #1.)

Recent product decisions to track: - Onboarding-as-a-feeling was cut. Splash stands alone — no onboarding flow at MVP. - Soul Map lives on Profile. It's the user's personal record of reads and reflections. You make an account specifically to keep your Soul Map. Account deletion is a mandatory V1 item per App Store policy. - Soul Map visualization deferred out of Phase 1 (call 2026-06-29). Accounts/auth and reflection storage stay in V1 (the data accrues), but the visual Soul Map surface itself is not built in V1. (Refines the earlier "Soul Map persistence ships in V1" line: persist the inputs, defer the visualization.)

Phase 1 CMS priorities (call 2026-06-29)

Concrete first-build targets agreed on the data-model call: - Wagtail CMS setup (engine per ADR-0001; "Payload" in the call was illustrative). - Passage schema: body type, content-type field (letter / poem / nonfiction), source (Work xor in-corpus piece), theme tags, draft → review → published workflow, image attachment. - Tag types for passages and articles. - Direct data access via API. - Auth (API side, starts this week — Mayank): email/password login; guest mode for unauthenticated users; Apple/Google sign-in as a stretch. Basic user profile + reflection storage. - Podcast = receptacle/stub only, not built in Phase 1.

Sequencing reality: 14 weeks is extremely tight — realistic only by starting on a content subset (a manageable set of letters/passages to seed). Content migration is the biggest risk (see 06-content-migration-risk.md). The client must approve the CMS recommendation before build starts (hosting/licensing costs not yet communicated to them).

IA stand-up refinements (2026-06-30)

Internal Fueled stand-up (raw/standup-2026-06-30-ia.md) — team working assumptions, not all client-confirmed: - Home: curated vs algorithmic is still open — Lina to confirm. Working assumption is editorially curated (not algorithmic): hero always a passage/quote; featured-theme + featured-journey carousels + a "What's new" module rather than an infinite feed. - Themes: finite controlled vocabulary. Working v1 set (clarified 2026-06-30): Imagination, Joy/Longing, Myth, Grief, Faith, Friendship, Wonder, Reason, Love (9 "for now", may grow pre-launch; supersedes the earlier "~19" guess). Each with bespoke portal art + colour; CMS must allow adding themes in v2 even though the v1 set is fixed. - Journeys: detail page (title/overview/chapter list/length); multiple in progress at once; progress gated behind account creation. - Deeper meaning is likely deprioritized — client has no editorial team to QA AI interpretations. (The shorter shared "thought provoker" prompt stays.) - Related content deprioritized for now — see flag in 02-product-domain.md; impact on the v1 graph-engine scope is unresolved. - Books = source reference only in v1 (no e-reader); Podcasts = later phase. - Letters in-app: needs client confirmation (previously assumed in). - Content-model validation: client raw content (collected 2026-06-30) won't map cleanly to Lina's schema; team will manually shape a few sample pieces to validate the model first (see 06-content-migration-risk.md). - Sprint 1 ideally starts 2026-07-01; velocity ~30 pts/sprint; estimates owned by engineering, not Lina.

Phase 2 (after MVP)

Paywall, subscription management, daily drop editorial scheduler, reflection moderation queue, search, long-form reading view, share sheet, free/premium tier gating per content item.

(Moved into V1 on 2026-06-29: sign-up/sign-in, account deletion, Soul Map persistence. Monetization-related items stay Phase 2.)

Audio player additions: timer, speed controls, offline support (TBC within Phase 2).

Open decisions (as of 2026-06-18)

  • Paywall placement and tier structure — Phase 2, but schema must accommodate per-content tier gating
  • Audio player scope in Phase 2 — timer, speed, offline TBC
  • How many portals/Journeys ship at MVP — still open
  • AI-generated featured images — client AI-disclosure conversation still pending
  • Home feed: curated vs algorithmic — Lina to confirm (IA stand-up 2026-06-30); working assumption is editorially curated
  • Letters held in-app? — needs client confirmation (IA stand-up 2026-06-30); was assumed in
  • Deeper meaning + related content — both flagged for deprioritization (IA stand-up 2026-06-30); confirm v1 scope, esp. whether the tag-overlap graph engine stays in the v1 build
  • ~~Accounts assumption~~ — RESOLVED 2026-06-29: auth/accounts are in V1, gates out, no monetization in V1 (Lina, Slack — raw/slack-auth-scope-2026-06-29.md). Still pre-client-vetting; the Product Features doc will be pruned. Warrants an ADR once locked.