Real Example: AI Daily Digest

A complete breakdown of building a production app using the 5-Round Planning Methodology

---

← Previous: Templates | Back to Hub

---

Table of Contents

• The Project Overview

• The Results

• Round 1: State the Goal

• Round 2: Requirements Clarification

• Round 3: Architecture Lock

• Round 4: Master Prompt (Optional)

• Round 5: Implementation Phase Planning

• Phase 1 Execution: RSS Integration

• Phases 2-6 Execution Summaries

• Phase 7: Integration and Launch

• Key Code Patterns

• Lessons and Takeaways

---

The Project Overview

What Is AI Daily Digest?

The Problem:

I subscribe to 15+ AI newsletters. Reading them daily takes 2-3 hours. I miss important articles because of information overload.

The Solution:

An RSS aggregator that:

• Fetches articles from 15+ AI-focused newsletters

• Summarizes each article in 2-3 sentences using OpenAI

• Auto-categorizes content (Technical, Business, Trends, Tools)

• Displays everything in a clean dashboard

• Allows manual refresh on demand

Tech Stack:

• Frontend: Next.js 14 (App Router), React 18, Tailwind CSS

• Backend: Next.js API Routes, Node.js 18

• Database: Supabase (PostgreSQL)

• External Services: OpenAI API (GPT-3.5), RSS Parser

• Deployment: Vercel

Why This Example Matters:

This isn’t a tutorial project. This is production complexity that breaks without systematic approach:

Complexity:

• Multiple external APIs (RSS feeds, OpenAI, Supabase)

• Async operations (feed fetching, AI processing)

• Data processing (parsing, deduplication, categorization)

• Performance considerations (handling thousands of articles)

Real Production Challenges:

• What happens when RSS feeds fail?

• How do you handle OpenAI rate limits?

• How do you prevent duplicate articles?

• How do you optimize database queries with large datasets?

---

The Results

Time to build: 18 hours from planning to production

vs. Previous project (Quick Viral Notes, built ad-hoc): 30+ hours, then 2-week refactor

Time saved: 12+ hours + avoided complete refactor

Planning Breakdown:

• Round 1 (Goal Statement): 10 minutes → Saved 5 hours of scope creep

• Round 2 (Requirements): 15 minutes → Saved 3 hours of unclear requirements

• Round 3 (Architecture): 12 minutes → Saved 8 hours of refactoring

• Round 4 (Master Prompt): Skipped (architecture fresh in context)

• Round 5 (Phase Planning): 8 minutes → Saved 4 hours of unclear milestones

Total: 60 minutes planning saved 23+ hours

---

Round 1: State the Goal