Parley
AI meeting notes that cite their sources. An open-core clone of Fathom, built in 24 hours on Next.js, Vercel and Neon Postgres.
Parley records Zoom, Google Meet and Teams calls from your browser: your mic plus the meeting tab's audio, with no bot joining the call. It transcribes live with Deepgram and writes notes while you talk. When the call ends you get a summary, action items with owners, clips and a Slack briefing. Every note links to the exact line of the transcript it came from.
Features
| Area | What it does |
|---|
| Recording | Mic + meeting-tab audio in the browser, pause/leave/discard, consent notice, audio archive with seekable playback |
| Transcription | Deepgram nova-3 streaming with speaker diarization; typed-line fallback without a key |
| Live notes | Decisions, action items and questions during the call: AI on closed 10-minute windows and on the open end (refreshed ~30s), rule-based for the newest lines |
| After the call | Summary in your template, action items with owners and due dates, highlights, shareable clips; every item cites its transcript line |
| Ask Parley | Chat across all meetings and your calendar; every sentence cited; uncited sentences are dropped |
| Search | Full-text across calls with synonyms (SSO = single sign-on = SAML), ⌘K command bar |
| Scratchpad | Private per-meeting notes, stamped to the minute, never sent to AI |
| Calendar | Google/Outlook/iCloud via a secret iCal address (no OAuth); join-and-record from upcoming events |
| Integrations | Slack briefing, Notion page per meeting, HubSpot note on matched contacts; each user's own tokens |
| Models (BYOK) | Claude, ChatGPT or Hugging Face, from the user's key or the server's, tried in that order with fallthrough |
| Developer | REST API (/api/v1) and a read-only MCP server (/api/mcp) with personal access tokens |
| Accounts | Try now (no signup, deleted after 24 h), Sign in with Google, shared reviewer demo |
| Data controls | Export everything (JSON), retention (30/90/365 days), delete account, security activity log |
| Onboarding | Guided tour with a gradient cursor on the landing page and dashboard |
Quick start
npm install
cp .env.example .env.local # set DATABASE_URL at minimum, or use pglite:./.pglite
npm run db:migrate
npm run db:seed # demo workspace: Maya Chen, 20 meetings
npm run dev # http://localhost:3000
No cloud database needed locally: DATABASE_URL=pglite:./.pglite (also set DATABASE_URL_UNPOOLED to the same value for db:migrate) runs an embedded Postgres.
Environment variables
| Variable | Required | Purpose |
|---|
DATABASE_URL | yes | Neon pooled connection string (or pglite:./.pglite) |
DATABASE_URL_UNPOOLED | yes | Neon direct connection, used by migrations |
PARLEY_SECRET_KEY | yes | 32+ random chars (openssl rand -base64 32). Signs sessions, encrypts stored keys. Never rotate after launch. |
CRON_SECRET | production | Protects /api/cron/sweep (openssl rand -hex 32) |
APP_URL | production | Public base URL, no trailing slash. Used for links in Slack/Notion/HubSpot/API |
GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID, GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET | for accounts | Google OAuth web client; redirect URI <APP_URL>/api/auth/google/callback |
DEEPGRAM_API_KEY | recommended | Live transcription (key role Member or higher) |
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_MODEL | optional | Default model for everyone (claude-opus-5) |
OPENAI_API_KEY, OPENAI_MODEL | optional | Fallback model (gpt-5-mini) |
HF_TOKEN, HF_MODELS | optional | Free Hugging Face models, tried in order |
SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL | optional | Server-wide briefing channel, demo workspace only |
Users' own keys (Settings) always win over the server's. Notion and HubSpot have no server-wide key: they're per user.
Commands
| Command | What it does |
|---|
npm run dev / build / start | Next.js dev server / production build / serve |
npm run typecheck | tsc --noEmit |
npm run db:migrate | Apply drizzle/*.sql to DATABASE_URL_UNPOOLED (or DATABASE_URL) |
npm run db:seed | Load the demo fixtures (idempotent) |
npm run db:verify | Schema, AI pipeline and open-core suites against an in-memory Postgres. No network or keys needed |
npm run verify:routes | HTTP-level suite against a running server (BASE_URL, default http://localhost:3100). Run the server without HF_TOKEN, on PGlite |
API
Create a personal access token in Settings → Access tokens with the read scope and send Authorization: Bearer parley_pat_…. Limit: 300 requests per 5 minutes.
| Method | Path | Returns |
|---|
| GET | /api/v1/meetings?limit= | Recent meetings with overview, participants, action-item counts |
| GET | /api/v1/meetings/:id?transcript=1 | Summary sections, action items, highlights, clips, optional transcript |
| GET | /api/v1/action-items?status=open|done | Action items with owner, due date, source link |
| GET | /api/v1/search?q= | Transcript moments and calendar events (synonym-aware) |
| POST | /api/v1/ask {"question": "…"} | Cited answer across meetings and calendar |
MCP server
Stateless Streamable HTTP at /api/mcp (protocol 2025-11-25, also 2025-06-18, 2025-03-26, 2024-11-05). Read-only tools: search_meetings, ask_parley, list_meetings, get_meeting, list_action_items.
claude mcp add --transport http parley https://parley-smoky.vercel.app/api/mcp --header "Authorization: Bearer parley_pat_…"
Architecture
Browser ── mic + tab audio ──▶ Deepgram (WebSocket, 60s token from /api/deepgram/token)
│ │ words + speakers
▼ ▼
/api/ingest (append lines) ──▶ Postgres (Neon) ◀── /api/streams/meetings (SSE to watchers)
│ after(): job queue ▲
▼ │
AI pipeline: 10-min windows ▸ merge ▸ grounded summary ▸ Slack / Notion / HubSpot
(Claude → ChatGPT → Hugging Face, user key first)
Vercel Cron (daily) ▸ /api/cron/sweep: stale calls, stuck jobs, iCal sync, retention, guest expiry
- Stack: Next.js 16 (App Router,
after()), React 19, TypeScript, Tailwind v4, Drizzle ORM, Neon serverless (PGlite locally), Vercel.
- Grounding: the model only sees numbered transcript lines and must cite them. Citations that point nowhere, and quotes that don't match the line, are dropped or flagged.
- Security: HMAC-signed session cookies; AES-256-GCM for stored keys and feed URLs; SHA-256-hashed access tokens with scopes (
ingest, calendar, read); Postgres sliding-window rate limits; owner checks on every write.
- Storage: everything lives in Postgres, including audio chunks (~15-20 MB per hour). Move audio to Vercel Blob or R2 before it outgrows Neon's free 0.5 GB.
Project layout
app/ routes: landing, (app) dashboard pages, api/*, server actions
src/ai/ LLM clients + pool, pipeline, prompts, grounding, Ask Parley
src/calendar/ iCal fetch/parse/sync
src/capture/ dual-stream (mic + tab) capture, recorder
src/notify/ Slack, Notion, HubSpot delivery
src/db/ schema, seed, client (Neon or PGlite)
src/components/ UI (shadcn), live call, tour, settings forms
drizzle/ SQL migrations 0000-0011
scripts/ migrate + verification suites
seed/ demo fixtures (20 meetings)
.agent-logs/ build session logs (kept in the repo on purpose)
Deploy
npx vercel link
npx vercel env add DATABASE_URL production # repeat for each variable above
npx vercel deploy --prod
vercel.json pins functions to cle1 (next to Neon us-east-2) and schedules the daily sweep.
Limits
No meeting bot, no video recording, no Google Calendar OAuth, no SSO/SOC 2/HIPAA. HANDOVER.md explains why each was left out.
