Personal Lifecycle Tracker --- MVP Scope Brainstorm

Status: Working scope draft
Purpose: Consolidate decisions made during brainstorming. This is not yet a final technical specification.
MVP lifecycle types: Renewals, Maintenance, Warranties

1. Product Goal

Build a Personal Lifecycle Tracker for multiple independent users and groups. It helps people track important lifecycle items, see upcoming and overdue actions, and receive reminders.

The MVP is limited to three lifecycle types:

1. Renewals --- e.g., insurance, passport, licence, membership
2. Maintenance --- e.g., car, AC, appliance, home
3. Warranties --- e.g., electronics and appliances

2. Consolidated MVP Scope

Accounts and users

• Support multiple independent users.
• Users sign up and log in using email and password.
• Each user can create and belong to groups.
• No Google sign-in is included in the chosen scope.

Groups and shared access

• Any user can create a group and invite members by email.
• Group access model: owner and members with shared access.
• All group members can create, edit, and complete shared lifecycle items.
• Group membership and item permissions are otherwise intentionally simple.
• Shared group items remain with the group when a member leaves or is removed.
• No external sharing of individual items is supported.

Lifecycle items

• Only three lifecycle types are in scope: Renewals, Maintenance, and Warranties.
• Use common fields only; no type-specific or user-customizable fields in the MVP.
• The selected common fields are:
  • Name
  • Lifecycle type
  • Due date (optional)
  • Status
• Dates are entered manually.
• Missing due dates are allowed.
• Items are created through a guided form where the user first selects a lifecycle type.
• Items are organized into basic lists by lifecycle type.
• No item assignment or responsible-person field.
• No attachments or document uploads.
• No external sharing.

Status, completion, and deletion

• Completed items are retained and remain visible in the main list alongside other items.
• Overdue items remain overdue until manually completed.
• No recurring schedules are included in the MVP, despite the earlier selection of manual date entry with recurring schedules. The later explicit decision was no recurring schedules in MVP.
• Item deletion is permanent.
• No activity history is included.
• Account deletion removes everything associated with the account, including its group items.
• Deleting a group deletes the group and all its shared items.

Dashboard and navigation

• The dashboard prioritizes upcoming actions and overdue items.
• Basic lists are separated by lifecycle type.
• No advanced search, filters, custom tags, folders, calendar, or analytics were selected for the MVP.

Reminders and email

• Support both in-app and email reminders.
• Reminder schedule is fixed and identical for everyone.
• Both reminder channels are always enabled; users cannot disable either channel.
• No snooze functionality.
• Email delivery uses a daily scheduled digest, rather than a separate email for each reminder event.
• The digest contains upcoming and overdue items.
• A single application time zone is used.
• The digest delivery time is still pending (see Section 4).

Excluded capabilities

• No attachments or document vault
• No data export
• No activity history
• No external item sharing
• No recurring schedules in the MVP
• No reminder snooze
• No user-configurable reminder timing or notification preferences
• No item assignment
• No custom fields or type-specific fields
• No CSV/PDF export

3. Decisions Made --- Question-by-Question Record

---

                        \# Topic                 Selected decision

---

                         1 Target audience       Multiple people ---
                                                 support independent
                                                 users and groups

                         2 Ownership model       Independent users and
                                                 groups

                         3 Account access        Email-based accounts
                                                 using email and
                                                 password

                         4 Group permissions     Owner and members
                                                 with shared access

                         5 Item data model       Common fields only

                         6 Reminder channels     In-app and email
                                                 reminders

                         7 Date handling         Manual date entry
                                                 with recurring
                                                 schedules was
                                                 initially selected;
                                                 later superseded by
                                                 Question 27: no
                                                 recurring schedules
                                                 in MVP

                         8 Completion behavior   Mark complete and
                                                 retain history

                         9 Documents             No attachments

                        10 Dashboard             Upcoming actions and
                                                 overdue items

                        11 Item creation         Guided form with
                                                 lifecycle type
                                                 selection

                        12 Item organization     Basic lists by
                                                 lifecycle type

                        13 Group creation        Users can create
                                                 groups and invite
                                                 members by email

                        14 Shared item           All group members can
                           permissions           manage shared items

                        15 Reminder timing       Fixed reminder
                                                 schedule for everyone

                        16 Overdue behavior      Keep overdue until
                                                 manually completed

                        17 Item responsibility   No assignment

                        18 Member departure      Items remain with the
                                                 group

                        19 Item deletion         Permanent deletion

                        20 Activity history      No activity history

                        21 Data export           No export

                        22 Notification          Both channels always
                           preferences           enabled

                        23 Account deletion      Delete everything,
                                                 including group items

                        24 External item sharing No external sharing

                        25 Common item fields    Name, type, due date,
                                                 status

                        26 Reminder snooze       No snooze

                        27 Recurring schedules   No recurring
                                                 schedules in MVP

                        28 Completed item        Keep completed items
                           visibility            in the main list

                        29 Missing dates         Allow missing dates

                        30 Group deletion        Delete group and all
                                                 its shared items

                        31 Time zones            Single application
                                                 time zone

                        32 Email delivery        Daily scheduled
                                                 digest

                        33 Digest contents       Upcoming and overdue
                                                 items

---

4. Pending Decision

Question 34 --- Daily digest delivery time

Choose the time for the daily email digest in the single application time zone:

• A. 6:00 AM --- early morning
• B. 8:00 AM --- morning planning
• C. 9:00 AM --- start-of-workday summary
• D. 12:00 PM --- midday check-in

No option has been selected yet.

5. Important Clarifications for the Next Pass

These are unresolved specification details, not additional decisions:

1. Fixed reminder schedule: The exact lead times before a due date have not been selected. Do not assume intervals such as 30, 7, or 1 day without confirming them.
2. In-app reminder behavior: The channel is selected, but the exact UI location and whether reminders are persistent notifications or dashboard indicators are not defined.
3. Status values: The common Status field is selected, but the complete list of statuses and transition rules has not been defined. At minimum, the conversation establishes active/upcoming, overdue, and completed concepts; final status labels should be confirmed.
4. Missing due dates: Items without dates are allowed. They cannot be classified as upcoming or overdue until a due date exists.
5. Completed items and "history": Completed records should remain visible, but a separate activity/change log is excluded.
6. Account deletion and group ownership: The selected rule says account deletion deletes everything, including group items. The handling of groups with other members when their owner deletes their account may need an explicit implementation rule; do not silently preserve or transfer the group.
7. Group deletion permissions: The deletion consequence is selected, but whether only the group owner can delete a group has not been explicitly decided.
8. Group invitations: Invitations are sent by email, but acceptance, expiry, cancellation, duplicate invitations, and behavior for unregistered invitees remain unspecified.
9. Due-date semantics: The application time zone is global, but date-only versus date-and-time input and the exact boundary for becoming overdue need to be defined.
10. Renewals and maintenance completion: Items are retained when completed. Since recurring schedules are excluded, the MVP should not automatically create a next-cycle item.

6. MVP Acceptance Outline

The MVP should allow a user to:

• Register and log in with email and password.
• Create a group and invite members by email.
• Create renewal, maintenance, and warranty items using a guided form.
• Save items with name, type, optional due date, and status.
• View items in lists separated by lifecycle type.
• See upcoming actions and overdue items on the dashboard.
• Mark an item complete while retaining it in the main list.
• Receive in-app reminders and a daily email digest containing upcoming and overdue items, using the fixed schedule and application time zone once configured.
• Permanently delete items, groups, and accounts according to the selected deletion rules.

7. Scope Principle

Keep the first version deliberately small: lifecycle records, simple groups, a focused action dashboard, and fixed reminders. Do not add excluded capabilities unless the scope is explicitly revised.