Build Story · Workspace · Web / iPhone
Boxiz: everything, in boxes
A calm workspace where notes, docs and files live in boxes, and AI coding sessions file their own work.
In one look
The problem
Notes apps bury things. Sidebars grow, folders nest, and last week's page is five clicks deep. Files sit in a separate drive, and when AI agents do the work, what they shipped and decided ends up scattered across chats.
What we built
Boxiz puts notes, docs and files in boxes, and every box can hold more boxes. An Explorer tree with drag and Undo, a History of every change, and files next to the notes. AI agents connect through its own MCP server to read boxes and file their work.
Where it is now
Live on the web, with a native iPhone app in testing. Ilian runs his own projects from it: AI sessions file what changed and what was decided, and open choices wait in an inbox for one tap. The landing page is open for sign-up.
What this would have cost in 2024
About $36k and 2–3 months
2024 team: 3 people: full-stack web developer, iOS developer, part-time designer. Built here by one founder working with AI in 32 days.
| Piece | 2024 hours |
|---|---|
| Page workspace: nested pages, block editor, autosave, generated covers, search, sign-in | ~143 |
| Explorer tree, change History, Assets file tree, phone layout | ~103 |
| File storage, media-attach API with dedupe, Smart Drop routing | ~73 |
| Brand, landing page with hero reveal, share images | ~53 |
| MCP server and write API for AI agents, keys, rate limits | ~135 |
| Box skeleton: locked sections, changelog, decisions register, triggers, sweeper | ~93 |
| Inbox, Pulse and Weigh options on the web, with tests and CI | ~105 |
| Native iPhone app: SwiftUI, widgets, Apple/Google sign-in, inbox, release script | ~210 |
| Security pass, health check, QA and live verification | ~53 |
| Total (PERT) | ~970 |
Method: PERT (O+4M+P)/6 per piece; low = O × $25, likely = PERT × $37.5, high = P × $50 (Accelerance 2024 Eastern-Europe band). These are estimates of what a team would have needed in 2024, not invoices.
How it was built
From first commit to current build in 32 days
- A grid of pages
Two days after the project was set up, the main build from a one-page brief: pages inside pages without limit, large cards with generated covers, a block editor with autosave, file uploads and password recovery.
67 commits in one day - Explorer, History and Assets
A VS Code-style icon rail: an Explorer tree of every box with drag-to-move and Undo, a History of every change grouped by day, and an Assets panel with every file sorted by project and box. On a phone they open as full-screen panels.
History trigger checked in a rolled-back database test - A name and a look
The app became Boxiz: an ajar-box logo, a warm cream theme, rounded headings, and a public landing page that opens with an unboxing reveal.
- Open to AI agents
Boxiz got its own MCP server, so an AI session can find a box, read it and write to it. Files an agent sends land next to the notes as images, video or documents, stored once even when sent twice. A decisions register followed the same day.
- The same sections in each box
Each box got fixed, numbered sections, from a Start Here page to a decisions register, locked in the Explorer with a dot that shows how fresh each one is. Smart Drop arrived too: drop files anywhere and each one finds its box by a tag inside the file or by its name.
- An inbox for decisions
AI sessions leave questions in an Inbox, where each decision is one tap. New boxes arrive as proposals and are only created once approved. A Pulse panel flags boxes whose status line is out of date.
- A native iPhone app
Boxes, pages, search, the inbox and Pulse, rebuilt in SwiftUI. Home-screen widgets, Sign in with Apple and Google, and account deletion inside the app followed the next day. The app is in testing.
12/12 write-path checks pass - A health check and eight fixes
After a security pass and a 48-hour health check, eight fixes: Snooze and Not doing in the inbox, near-duplicate merging, rate limits for agents, errors that name the three closest boxes, and a daily sweep for out-of-date status lines.
8 of 8 fixes verified on the live system - Weigh options
One tap lays a decision's options side by side, with benefits, trade-offs, scores and a lean, on the web and in the iPhone app.
33 automated tests run in CI - New boxes start complete
A database trigger now gives any new box its Start Here, Changelog and Decisions pages, however the box was created.
Checked on both ways a box gets created
Who did what
The founder decided
- AI sessions can't delete pages. They leave the job in the founder's inbox, and he deletes it himself.
- A new box is only created when the founder approves a proposal.
- All boxes share the same fixed, locked sections, so an agent can't invent a new folder.
- Private by default: the database, not just the app, keeps each account's boxes and files to itself.
- Share images use the real wordmark from the code, never AI-drawn lettering.
AI built and checked
- The web app, built in Lovable from the founder's briefs: 192 of 214 web commits came from Lovable's build agent.
- Claude Code: the later database migrations, the inbox triage, Weigh options, tests and CI, and the security pass.
- The native iPhone app, written in SwiftUI by Claude Code and kept in step with the web inbox.
- Boxiz also holds the record of that AI work: each Claude session ends by filing its changelog line and decisions into the right box.
Stack
Want something like this for your team?
From one call to something live. The same method is in the Claude Operator Pack.
From the founder
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