week 2 recap of nights & weekends s5

In week 2 of Nights & Weekends S5 the focus is on building a "toy version" of the idea I talked about in my recent post. I'm actively building Hausmate an AI chat assistant for millennial homeowners.

This week's focus has been on the first iteration of an MVP. Getting something that functions up and running. My app is essentially a customized ChatGPT wrapper leveraging the OpenAI API.

The AI's role is a system with a context parameter of "a knowledgeable home repair assistant. Ask follow-up questions to understand the user's problem better, and provide helpful guidance, including time estimates and possible tools or parts required."

Building the conversational part of this requires enough context to always steer the conversation in the right direction. Here are the types of questions that the system keeps in mind while carrying on the conversation with the user:

"Can you describe the problem in more detail?"

"What tools do you have available for this task?"

"Do you have the necessary materials for this task, such as a replacement pipe and plumber's tape?"

"The estimated time to complete this task is 1-2 hours. Do you feel comfortable tackling this task?"

But how does the application know to direct the conversation based on a specific task? The task is defined based on the context of the problem the user enters in their message. The system maintains the context of this problem/task throughout the conversation until a concluding solution is reached between the user and the system.

The end goal of the assistant's conversation with the user is to help the user to a good starting point to perform a repair or maintenance task or if they decide the choose not to perform the task, get a recommendation for a local service who can complete the task.

A few things I'm trying to fix before I dive into making this UI "look good"

1. Shorten the responses that are coming back from the system to make it behave more like an interactive assistant. Currently, it's listing multiple clarifying questions in a single response.
2. Source some data so that the system can reference top-rated local home service businesses users can contact if the users decide not to perform the task.
3. Make Hausmate public, go from localhost to a public test URL where folks can try it out in the wild.

And that's where things are as I wrap up week 2 and head into week 3. This thing is starting to take shape.