Stiflow: AI-Powered Timebox Planner & Live Agent

Stiflow redefines time management with Gemini. An AI agent that analyzes your screenshots and voice to build visual timeboxes, manage routines, and automate your schedule in real-time.

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About the Project

💡 Inspiration

I'm a freelancer and solo business owner who works from home. For years, I struggled with managing my schedule—until a visit to the doctor gave me an answer: Adult ADHD. From that point on, I tried routine apps, planners, and every productivity tool I could find. But something was always missing. None of them fit the way I actually lived and worked.

Then I came across two approaches that caught my attention: time-boxing, famously practiced by Elon Musk, and the Time Timer method popularized inside Google. I thought—what if I combined both, and added routine management on top? That would be the tool I actually want to use. That idea became Stiflow AI.

🎙️ Why a Voice AI Assistant?

A well-organized schedule is great in theory—but maintaining one is its own kind of work. Opening an app, typing out tasks, updating statuses—for someone with ADHD, that friction is a real barrier.

I wanted something different: speak a task out loud the moment it comes to mind, and have it registered instantly. Say it's done, and have it updated. That's why I integrated the Gemini Live Audio API to build Jenny, the voice planning assistant at the heart of Stiflow AI. I chose the name because it feels polished yet approachable—easy to say, easy to remember. It also carries a subtle association with a certain BLACKPINK member's image, which I liked.

🔨 How I Built It

Development started in mid-February and took about a month—solo. I alternated between AI coding agents (Gemini, Claude, and Codex) to move fast and cover more ground. It's the most feature-rich project I've shipped in the shortest time.

  • Frontend — Next.js deployed on Vercel: drag-and-drop time grid, focus timer, real-time voice interface
  • Backend — FastAPI on Google Cloud Run: planner logic, AI orchestration, WebSocket-based voice sessions
  • AI — Gemini 2.5 Flash for task breakdown · Gemini Live Audio API for Jenny

🚧 Challenges

The 80/20 problem of AI-assisted development. AI agents are remarkably fast at getting a project to 80%—functional, presentable, almost there. But the remaining 20% is where the real work begins. Design consistency, UX details, edge cases—these require hands-on iteration that no agent can shortcut. And every new feature introduced side effects that broke something else.

Voice AI still has a naturalness gap. The Gemini Live API impressed me with how well it handles voice recognition and context. But there's a subtle difference between AI conversation and human conversation that I kept noticing: people naturally speak in short, concise bursts—they don't recite everything they know. AI still tends to over-explain. It's come a long way, but that gap is still there.

Security was a constant concern. Working with AI agents on a full-stack application means moving fast—sometimes too fast. I stayed vigilant throughout development, double-checking generated code for potential vulnerabilities: exposed API keys, insufficient input validation, authentication gaps. Even with that care, there's always an undercurrent of doubt. Security is never "done," and I plan to keep reviewing and hardening the codebase as the product grows.

📚 What I Learned

This project pushed me further than anything I'd built before. I'd worked on web projects previously, but never shipped this many features this quickly. Building a voice assistant was also a first for me. More than anything, I learned that building something for yourself changes how you work—you care more, iterate more honestly, and stay motivated through the hard parts.

✨ What's Next

The first goal is simple: make it something I genuinely enjoy using every day. That means improving how the Focus Timer connects to actual tasks, and adding a daily summary report—a recap of what was planned and what got done. Over time, I want to build in personalized features based on usage data, and integrate Google Calendar so time blocks flow directly into your calendar with reminders.

When I'm satisfied with where it is, I plan to share my own experience using it through content—and see if it resonates with others who face the same challenges I do.

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