Home
Menu Orders
Seller Reports
Staff kitchen display
User History

Inspiration

I have worked in restaurants and customer service for many years. I kept seeing the same problems: customers, businesses, and staff using disconnected tools, losing information, waiting for answers, and repeating the same steps.

I am not a traditional software developer. I am a hospitality professional from Puerto Rico building independently with one laptop, ChatGPT, and Codex. Hello Ghost began as an ambitious idea: create one ecosystem that helps people and businesses organize everyday service experiences.

What it does

Hello Ghost is a customer-service ecosystem designed around three connected roles:

Users who discover businesses, communicate, review activity, and organize service interactions.
Businesses that manage customer requests, operations, and information.
Staff members who receive and complete operational tasks.

The current Build Week submission focuses on the working iPhone and iPad user application. It includes:

Home and service discovery
Business communication and chats
Maps
Activity history
User settings
A mobile API connection
Secure automatic demo access for evaluators

The larger Hello Ghost vision includes separate User, Seller, and Staff experiences, but this submission presents the working mobile foundation rather than claiming that the entire ecosystem is finished.

How we built it

The mobile application was built with React Native, Expo, TypeScript, and Xcode.

The backend uses:

Node.js
Express
Prisma
PostgreSQL hosted through Supabase
JWT authentication
bcrypt
REST API endpoints

Git and GitHub Desktop were used for version control.

Codex was used as the primary development partner for repository inspection, implementation planning, debugging, TypeScript validation, API builds, native iOS compilation, authentication auditing, and Git workflow support.

What existed before Build Week

Before Build Week, Hello Ghost already had:

A working mobile prototype
iPhone and iPad support
User authentication
Home, chats, maps, history, and settings
An Express API
Prisma and PostgreSQL integration
A larger documented ecosystem concept

What we added during Build Week

During Build Week, we created a dedicated submission branch and added secure reviewer access.

The Build Week extension:

Removes the need for evaluators to enter a username or password
Creates an isolated demo guest through the existing Express and JWT architecture
Preserves the normal login system when demo mode is disabled
Restricts demo users from sensitive business and staff operations
Keeps demo data attached only to the authenticated guest ID
Adds controlled error handling and retry behavior
Passes mobile TypeScript validation
Passes the API production build
Passes Expo iOS bundle validation
Successfully compiles through Xcode
Was manually tested on a physical iPhone

The Build Week implementation is documented in commit:

8be99d62 - feat: add secure Build Week demo access

Challenges we ran into

One major challenge was discovering that the project does not use Supabase Auth directly.

The application uses Express, bcrypt, JWT, and AsyncStorage for authentication, while Prisma connects to PostgreSQL hosted by Supabase. Adding Supabase anonymous authentication would have introduced a second identity system and required unfinished RLS and database migrations.

Instead, Codex audited the real architecture and implemented demo access through the existing backend.

We also repaired native iOS dependency issues, rebuilt CocoaPods, restored the paused Supabase project, and verified the application using Xcode and a physical iPhone.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Recovering and identifying the correct repository after years of scattered project work
Successfully compiling and running the native iOS application
Creating secure password-free evaluator access without exposing credentials
Preserving the existing production authentication flow
Completing the Build Week extension as an independent solo creator
Turning a hospitality worker's idea into a real working software prototype

What we learned

I learned that building software is not only about writing code. It requires understanding architecture, protecting user data, validating assumptions, testing across systems, and knowing when not to force a new technology into an existing design.

Codex was especially valuable because it could inspect the repository, identify the actual authentication architecture, explain the risks, implement a compatible solution, and validate the result.