Doorway Relay

Inspiration

In shared homes and care environments, a doorbell notification can create a simple but important problem: everyone sees the alert, but nobody knows who is responsible for responding. One person assumes someone else will handle it, and the task gets forgotten.

I wanted to explore how software could turn these scattered notifications into clear, accountable handoffs, where every task has an owner, an explicit status, and a record of what happened.

What it does

Doorway Relay turns incoming events into a structured workflow:

Event → Inbox → Classification → Assignment → Acknowledgement → Resolution

The dashboard helps users understand what needs attention. Events can be classified into actionable handoffs, assigned to a responsible person, acknowledged, and resolved with an activity trail. The application also tracks task states such as overdue and stalled work.

The goal is not simply to display another notification. It is to make responsibility visible and follow-through traceable.

How I built it

I built a full-stack application using React and TypeScript with Vite for the frontend, and Node.js, Express, and SQLite for the backend. The application includes authenticated sessions, request protection, database migrations, input validation, persistent handoff records, and automated tests.

I also developed Ring integration paths, including server-side API client code, device-listing and probe functionality, webhook handling, and a separate receive-only live-view interface. A local signed simulator allows the core workflow to be demonstrated with clearly labelled synthetic events. The project also has a static GitHub Pages showcase with an interactive preview.

Challenges and what I learned

One of the biggest challenges was preserving data provenance. A locally generated event, a mocked API response, and an event from an actual Ring device must never be treated as equivalent.

I also learned the importance of testing complete workflows rather than individual components alone: authentication, persistence, task transitions, duplicate handling, and audit history all need to work together.

Another important lesson was knowing when not to guess. Ring Event History parsing and Sync remain disabled until the actual Playground response structure is reviewed. The existing integration code is not proof of a successful live Ring connection.

What's next

The next steps are to verify the supported Ring integration against genuine Playground evidence, complete the remaining integration tests, and improve the recorded product demonstration. Doorway Relay is an evolving project focused on making shared responsibilities clearer, more reliable, and easier to audit.

Built With

• css3
• git
• github
• githubactions
• githubpages
• html5
• javascript
• node.js
• python
• rest
• restapi
• sqlite
• vite
• vitest
• zod