AILI

An organised inbox and follow-up tracker for LinkedIn outreach. AILI shows every conversation with one clear next step, tells you who to reply to and who to chase today, and keeps sends human-clicked and capped so the account stays safe.

Status

Step 4 of 4. Login, a Chrome helper that syncs your real LinkedIn inbox and delivers the messages you click Send on, AILI inside Claude and ChatGPT, and LinkedIn posts you can publish or schedule.

Step	What it adds	State
1	Rail, sidebar, Notion-grey theme, inbox with the next-step engine	Done
2	Database, people you can add and edit, tags, notes, snooze, manual send and reply logging, People and Today pages	Done
3	Login, Chrome helper (LinkedIn client adapted from inflow), live inbox sync, sends delivered by the helper, Settings	Done
4	AILI as a connector in Claude and ChatGPT (summaries, reply drafts, posts), Posts page, official LinkedIn posting and scheduling, articles opened in LinkedIn's editor	Done

Run it

npm install          # also generates the Prisma client
npm run db:push      # creates prisma/dev.db (SQLite)
npm run db:seed      # loads eight sample people so there is something to click
npm run helper:build # bundles the Chrome helper into extension/dist
npm run dev          # also syncs the database layout and rebuilds the helper

Open http://localhost:3000 and create your account. Anyone can sign up from the log in screen; each account has its own separate inbox. Forgot your password? With RESEND_API_KEY set, Forgot password emails a one-time link (30 minutes); without it, npm run reset:password -- [email protected] prints the link.

After sign up comes a full-screen setup of three steps, each moving on by itself: install the extension (checked once when the page loads; if it is missing, Install extension then Next, which reloads and checks again; once found AILI connects it, nothing to paste), log in to LinkedIn (skipped if you already are), sync. As soon as the first conversations are in, "You are all set" opens the inbox; the rest keep importing, shown in the line at the top of the list. Skip for now goes straight to the app. The Install button opens the Chrome Web Store; set NEXT_PUBLIC_EXTENSION_URL to the extension's store page once it is published.

The extension runs in Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc, Opera and Vivaldi on a computer. Safari, Firefox and phones get "Open AILI in Chrome" during setup. Once set up, AILI works in any browser: syncing happens in Chrome, so with Chrome open it stays current; with Chrome closed the top line says when it last synced, and replies wait in the queue until Chrome is open again.

On a Mac, scripts/setup-mac.sh does all of the above in one go.

No .env file is needed for local use. To point at another database, copy .env.example to .env and change DATABASE_URL. Set AUTH_SECRET to any long random string when you host it; locally a random one is kept in prisma/.auth-secret.

Other scripts:

npm run typecheck   # generates Next route types, then tsc
npm run lint
npm test            # vitest: next-step engine, auth, sync parsing, LinkedIn response parsing
npm run build       # helper bundle plus the Next.js production build
npm run db:seed     # wipes and reloads the sample data
npm run reset:conversations -- [email protected] --yes  # clears one account's people and messages to re-import
npm run reset:conversations -- [email protected] --all --yes  # also tags, templates and stages: a fresh account, same login
npm run reset:password -- [email protected]  # prints a one-time link to set a new password
# After a reset the helper re-imports by itself: AILI tells it it has none of the history.

Host it (Vercel + Turso)

Free to start: Vercel runs the app, Turso holds the database (SQLite in the cloud, same schema). Vercel's free Hobby plan is for non-commercial use; move to Pro once AILI earns money.

1. Turso database. In the Turso dashboard create a database (pick the region closest to your Vercel region), then copy its URL (libsql://...) and create a token. Or with the CLI: turso db create aili, turso db show aili --url, turso db tokens create aili.
2. Copy your local data (optional). On the computer that has prisma/dev.db:

   TURSO_DATABASE_URL=libsql://... TURSO_AUTH_TOKEN=... npm run db:copy          # shows what it would copy
   TURSO_DATABASE_URL=libsql://... TURSO_AUTH_TOKEN=... npm run db:copy -- --yes # copies it
   

   It creates the tables and copies accounts, people, messages, tags, stages and templates. It refuses if Turso already has accounts. Skip it to start empty.
3. Vercel project. Add New, Project, import this GitHub repository. Before Deploy, add Environment Variables:
   • TURSO_DATABASE_URL, TURSO_AUTH_TOKEN: from step 1
   • AUTH_SECRET: any long random string (openssl rand -base64 32)
   • APP_URL: the site's address, e.g. https://aili.vercel.app (add it after the first deploy shows the address, then redeploy)
   • optional RESEND_API_KEY, RESEND_FROM for password reset emails. Resend's test sender [email protected] only delivers to your own Resend email; verify a domain to email anyone. Deploy. Each build runs db:deploy, which creates or updates the Turso tables, so schema changes go out with the code.
4. Point the extension at it. Add AILI_URL=https://your-address to .env (or put it in front of the command), run npm run helper:build, and press the reload arrow on the AILI helper in chrome://extensions. Then open your hosted AILI and log in; it connects the extension by itself. The extension talks only to that exact address and localhost, never a wildcard.

Claude, ChatGPT and LinkedIn posts

AILI is an MCP connector: people add it to Claude or ChatGPT and ask things like "summarize my conversation with Rachel", "draft a reply and put it in AILI", or "write a post about onboarding and schedule it for Tuesday 9am". It runs on their own Claude or ChatGPT plan; AILI holds no AI key.

• What it can do: read conversations, save a draft in a conversation's message box, write, schedule and publish posts, save articles. It has no way to send a LinkedIn message: a draft waits, labelled "Draft from Claude", until you click Send in AILI.
• Connect (each user, once): Settings, Connections, Connect on the Claude or ChatGPT row shows the connector address, https://your-address/mcp.
  • Claude: Settings, Connectors, Add custom connector, paste the address, Connect, then Allow on AILI's screen.
  • ChatGPT: Settings, Apps and Connectors, turn on Developer mode, create a connector with the address, then Allow. (Custom connectors need a paid ChatGPT plan.)
  • Disconnect any time in Settings. Behind it is standard OAuth with PKCE and dynamic client registration; tokens are stored hashed.

LinkedIn posting (once per AILI): posts go out through LinkedIn's official API, which needs a free LinkedIn developer app.

1. At https://developer.linkedin.com create an app (it needs a LinkedIn company page to attach to; any page you admin works).
2. Products: add Sign In with LinkedIn using OpenID Connect and Share on LinkedIn.
3. Auth: add the redirect URL https://your-address/api/linkedin/callback.
4. In Vercel add LINKEDIN_CLIENT_ID and LINKEDIN_CLIENT_SECRET (Secret) and redeploy. Then each user clicks Connect on the LinkedIn posting row in Settings, Connections. LinkedIn asks them to reconnect every 60 days; AILI shows when.

Scheduled posts timer: set CRON_SECRET in Vercel to a long random string and redeploy. At https://cron-job.org (free) create a job that calls https://your-address/api/cron/posts?key=<CRON_SECRET> every minute. Scheduled posts and first comments then go out within a minute of their time, with your computer off.

First comment: a post can carry a first comment (a link, say, so the post itself is not shown less for linking out). AILI posts it under the post, as you, a set time after the post goes live: Settings, Sending, First comment (right away, or 1 to 30 minutes after). Claude and ChatGPT can set it too. If LinkedIn refuses the comment, the post stays up and the comment shows "Not posted" with Try again. Without it they still go out, but only while Chrome is open with the extension (it checks in every minute).

Content plan: Content, Plan holds your 30, 60 or 90-day plan, one row per post or article: a day and a topic, plus pillar, goal, hook and notes if you have them. Bring it in from Excel (.xlsx) or CSV, paste rows straight from a sheet, or ask Claude to add them (add_plan_rows); AILI guesses what each column is and you check. A blank template is under •••. Three views: Agenda (each day once, status first, Personal or Company page on every post, the hook in grey, and the next step on the row), Table (like the sheet: pick columns, click a cell to change it, tick rows to skip or delete several) and Calendar. When a plan mixes channels, one tap shows just one. Each row's status comes from its post, so nobody updates a status column: planned, written, scheduled, posted, or missed when its day passes with nothing out. Skip a row to take it out of the count; Mark as posted covers posts put up straight on LinkedIn. Move or swap days from the row or by dragging in the calendar (a scheduled post moves with its row). The Needs you box, and a bar across the app, warn when a row due within the Plan warning (Settings, Sending, 3 days to start with) is not written or not scheduled. Claude reads the plan with get_plan, writes a row with create_post or save_article and its plan_row_id, and changes rows with update_plan_row. Times use the account's time zone: automatic from the browser, or picked in Settings, Account.

Articles: LinkedIn does not let apps publish articles. Claude or ChatGPT saves them in AILI; Open in LinkedIn opens LinkedIn's article editor and the extension fills in the title and text (they are also put on the clipboard in case LinkedIn's editor changes). You publish or schedule it there, then mark it as published in AILI.

Changing the database layout later: edit prisma/schema.prisma, run npm run db:migration -- short_name to write the SQL into prisma/migrations, commit it, and the next deploy applies it.

The Chrome helper

The helper is the bridge to LinkedIn. Without it, AILI still works in manual mode: you copy each message, paste it into LinkedIn, and log replies by hand.

1. npm run helper:build, then open chrome://extensions, turn on Developer mode, Load unpacked, choose extension/dist.
2. Log in to LinkedIn in Chrome.
3. In AILI go to Settings, copy the helper token. Click the AILI helper icon in Chrome, paste http://localhost:3000 and the token, press Connect.

After a git pull that changes the helper, start AILI with npm run dev (it rebuilds extension/dist), then press the reload arrow on AILI helper in chrome://extensions. If an old helper is still loaded, Settings, the inbox footer and the status dot all say it is out of date. Bump the version in both extension/manifest.json and src/lib/helper-version.ts when the helper changes.

On first connect the helper imports your history, one inbox page a minute, back to conversations 180 days old. From then on, once a minute while Chrome is open:

• new conversations and replies appear in AILI on their own,
• a message you clicked Send on in AILI is delivered from your LinkedIn account, one per minute, never more than the daily cap,
• the sidebar shows when the helper last synced,
• a new reply pops up as a desktop notification (up to three, then one summary). Clicking it opens that conversation in AILI. Turn it off in Settings, Notifications. The history import does not notify, and neither does a reply older than six hours. On a Mac, Chrome also needs to be allowed in System Settings, Notifications.

AILI itself always says what sync is doing:

• Before anything has synced, the inbox shows a setup card that ticks its own steps: helper installed (AILI asks the page script the helper adds to the AILI page only), connected with your token (with Copy buttons for the address and token), LinkedIn logged in. In Safari or Firefox it says to open AILI in Chrome.
• During the first import, a progress card shows how many conversations are in, which inbox and page is next, and how many are leads or in Other. The page refreshes itself every few seconds while setting up or importing.
• After that, one line at the top of the list: "Synced 1m ago" when all is well, amber with the reason and the fix when not (sync stopped, LinkedIn logged out, slowed down by LinkedIn, helper out of date, an error). The dot on the icon rail matches it.

The helper never sends anything you did not click. Details and the risk note are in extension/README.md.

What you can do

• Inbox. A sidebar next to the icon rail picks who the list shows: All, Now, Waiting, Starred, any tag or any stage, each with a count. Now is grouped the way an outreach expert works it: They replied, New connections, Follow up today, Last try. Tag and stage views use the same groups plus Waiting and Older. Every group folds. One header spans the sidebar and the list, with a small breadcrumb for the view (Inbox › Waiting). The icon before "Inbox" hides the sidebar; the icon at the right of the conversation header shows the details. Both are remembered. Search and an Airtable-style filter narrow whatever is open.
• Sent, delivered, seen. Send wakes the helper, so a message goes out in a few seconds (or waits for Chrome, and says so). Your latest message shows Delivered on LinkedIn once LinkedIn has it, and Seen with the time once they have read it: the helper reads LinkedIn's read receipts from the threads it syncs and checks recent unread messages every 15 minutes or so (if LinkedIn never returns a receipt it stops asking for a day). If LinkedIn's read-receipt query id is known, set LINKEDIN_SEEN_QUERY_ID and the helper uses it. A message LinkedIn refused stays in the conversation as Not sent, with the reason, Try again and Remove.
• The inbox, simply. Each person has one status, a coloured pill that is the same everywhere: Not connected, Request sent, Connected, Talking, Call booked, Pilot, Client, Not a fit (your stages; rename or add your own). A row shows the name, one line, when, and the status. A conversation shows the status in its header (click to change it), the thread, and one Next box in plain words (Send a connection request, Wait for them to accept, Reply). The sidebar has Needs you, Waiting on them, Everyone and Other; starred, tags and stages sit under More. Tags are in the details panel.
• Leads and Other. Only leads count: they are in All, Now, Waiting, Leads, the funnel, the Inbox badge and every number. Everyone else synced from LinkedIn sits in Other at the bottom of the views. Their whole conversation is there and you reply as normal; they just are not tracked. Leads are only the people you chose: anyone you added (by hand, Import, the helper popup) or moved there. Everyone synced from LinkedIn starts in Other, even when you wrote first, and nothing moves on its own. Add to Leads (in the conversation, or the helper popup on their profile) asks for a stage and tag and brings them in; the more menu on a lead, or Not leads on ticked rows in Leads, moves them to Other. When you start a new conversation on LinkedIn, the helper asks within a minute or two with a desktop notice (Add to Leads or Not a lead), and the conversation shows Lead? in Other until you answer. Settings, Account, Move everyone to Other starts Leads over. Reply notices and profile lookups are for leads only.

How the inbox decides the next step

src/lib/next-step.ts is a pure function that reads a person's messages and returns one of four states. The rules come from the outreach playbook.

Colour	State	Rule
Red	Reply needed	They wrote last, or they accepted and you have not messaged
Amber	Chase today	You wrote last and follow-up 1 (day 4) or follow-up 2 (day 9) is due, or a snooze ended
Violet	Gone quiet	Two follow-ups sent and five more silent days
Blue	Waiting	You wrote last and nothing is due yet, the person is snoozed, or you pressed Done
Grey	Older	Nothing from either side, and no action by you, for 30 days

Any reply from the prospect resets the sequence.

Stack

• Next.js 16, React 19, TypeScript
• Tailwind CSS 4 with shadcn/ui components (Stone base, copied into src/components/ui)
• Prisma 6 with SQLite locally; the schema moves to Postgres by changing the datasource provider
• Chrome extension, Manifest V3, bundled with esbuild
• Geist Sans and Geist Mono
• Vitest for unit tests

Layout

extension/
  manifest.json, popup.html, build.mjs
  src/background.ts     once a minute: deliver outbox, sync inbox, report status
  src/popup.ts          pairing and status
  src/aili.ts           calls to the AILI server
  src/linkedin/         Voyager client, encoding, parsing (adapted from inflow)
prisma/
  schema.prisma         Workspace, Person, Stage, Tag, PersonTag, Message, Outbox, Template
  seed.ts, seed-data.ts
scripts/setup-mac.sh
src/
  proxy.ts              sends logged-out visitors to /login
  app/
    login/              first-run registration and login
    (app)/              inbox, people, today, settings, posts (placeholder)
    api/helper/         sync, status, outbox routes the helper calls
  components/
    shell/rail.tsx      left icon rail with the Now count badge and helper dot
    inbox/              sidebar (views, tags, stages), people list, conversation
                        pane, details panel, send dialog, log-reply dialog, snooze menu
    people/             funnel, people table and bulk bar, import, add/edit dialog, tag picker
    settings/           settings page
    templates/          template editor, picker, settings list, Message all dialog
    ui/                 shadcn components
  lib/
    next-step.ts        the follow-up engine
    rows.ts             sorting shared by inbox, people and today
    data.ts             database reads for the logged-in workspace
    actions.ts          server actions (writes), including the send queue
    auth.ts             passwords and session cookies
    helper-sync.ts      applies what the helper saw to the database
    funnel.ts           who reached each stage, rates, the biggest drop
    companies.ts        Leads by company: matching names, roles, what next
    invites.ts          connection requests: who needs one, what the helper saw, stats
    alerts.ts           post alerts: who to ask next, the morning reminder, warm-up
    leads.ts            who starts as a lead and who starts in Other
    csv.ts              reads CSV imports, including LinkedIn's Connections export
    templates.ts        fills {first_name} and the other fields for a person
    types.ts            Person, Message, Tag, Stage, Account

Design rules

White page, stone-50 panels, stone-800 text, stone-500 muted text, stone-200 borders, 6px radius, no shadows, one near-black primary button. Colour is used only for the status dot and tag dots. Every send is a human click; there is no auto-send and there will not be one.