TrailMix

TrailMix reads your screen to auto-capture real tasks and upcoming meetings—deduped, scored, and refreshed every 5s. No APIs, just what you see.

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Inspiration

We noticed “ghost tasks” living in tabs—emails with Join meeting, calendar chips, and doc action items—that never make it into a todo app. APIs and integrations add friction, so we built a page-aware, privacy-first assistant that captures only what’s already visible on screen.

What it does

TrailMix scans the current page every 5s, detects real tasks and upcoming meetings (within ~2 hours), and creates exactly one clean task. It extracts titles, times, meeting links (Meet/Zoom/Teams/Webex), organizer/location, scores confidence, and dedupes across pages/tabs. When a title/time changes, the task updates automatically.

How we built it

  • DOM Scanner: visibility checks + proximity search around meeting links; MutationObserver for incremental rescans.
  • Parsers: regex for Meet/Zoom/Teams/Webex; time parser for “Today 3:00–3:30 PM”, “in 15 minutes”, RFC-ish stamps; local→UTC conversion.
  • Quality Scoring & Filter: isRealTask() with weighted signals (valid link, future time, “Join/RSVP” cues, organizer) and thresholding.
  • Dedupe: keys on (provider + link + startISO) plus fuzzy title and ±5-min window; client + server checks.
  • Storage: normalized tasks in Neon Postgres; timestamps in UTC.

Challenges we ran into

  • Parsing many date formats/locales without heavy libraries.
  • Distinguishing decorative UI (“review 3 tasks created”) from actionable items.
  • Handling recurring events and DOM-only edits (no API ground truth).
  • Preventing duplicate creation when the same meeting appears on multiple pages.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Accurate, API-free detection of meetings 0–120 minutes ahead.
  • Zero duplicate tasks after adding client/server dedupe.
  • Stricter detection via isRealTask() and scoring—far fewer false positives.
  • Snappy updates: scan cadence tuned from 30s → 5s without thrashing.

What we learned

Small, layered heuristics beat brittle single rules. Dedupe and confidence scoring are as important as detection. Users value privacy and zero-setup—using only what’s already on screen increases trust and adoption.

What’s next for TrailMix

  • Per-site adapters (GCal/Outlook/Gmail layouts) to boost recall and titles.
  • Optional API mode (consent-based) for multi-day horizon and RSVP actions.
  • Confidence tuning UI and “why this was captured” explanations.
  • iCal export and lightweight mobile companion for reminders.

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