ScopeNote: Turning Client Conversations into a Clear Freelance Scope

This submission aims to address the requirements of the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 2: Side Hustle, specifically focusing on a tool called ScopeNote. When a client says, "We need a small website. Maybe add bookings too," it leaves a freelancer with multiple decisions, such as whether "bookings" refers to linking to an existing service or building a reservation system.

ScopeNote helps turn these initial conversations into a clear scope for the freelancer to review before committing to the project. Designed for independent designers, developers, and small studios, ScopeNote allows users to input a written brief or upload a client briefing recording (with permission). It organizes the information into a project overview, concrete deliverables with editable estimated hours, questions about missing requirements, exclusions that define the boundaries of the work, and an estimate based on the freelancer's rate and contingency.

The resulting proposal can be exported as Markdown or a branded A4 PDF. The generated document serves as a starting point for discussion, not a definitive solution. A paid feature offers a private workspace for client work, with premium costing US$1 for 30 days. The free plan, however, makes newly saved drafts, scopes, and client names public, with a masked author label.

Premium users choose between Public or Private before saving, and private projects remain private even after access expires. The tool was built using React and Vite for the frontend, with Motion for transitions and Phosphor icons. The backend is powered by a Node.js/Express service. The core AI flow involves converting a written brief or recording into a structured scope using ElevenLabs Scribe, Gemma drafts a scope, and Zod validates the JSON.

The application is deployed on Render, with API credentials kept separate from the public source. The project is licensed under MIT, with local setup requiring Node.js 22.13+.