Unspool

Drop a doc. Unspool it. — unspool.cc

Drag in any document (class notes, a textbook chapter, a work PDF, a contract) and Unspool turns it into 10 short, swipeable, Instagram-style reels with hooks, voiceover, animated visuals and a quick quiz.

Stack: Next.js 16 (App Router) + TypeScript + Tailwind v4 + Motion, Supabase (Auth, Postgres, Storage), Vercel (hosting, background functions, cron), Stripe (Checkout, Portal, webhooks), Claude (plan + scripts + OCR), OpenAI TTS or ElevenLabs (voiceover).

Try the viewer with no backend at all: npm run dev → http://localhost:3000/s/demo.

How it works

upload (browser → Supabase Storage via signed URL)
  └─ POST /api/documents/:id/start
       └─ job: process   (own function invocation)
            extract text (unpdf / mammoth / pptx XML; Claude vision OCR for scans & photos)
            plan 10 reels with Claude  → reels rows (titles + hooks = free preview)
            └─ job: reel 1 (script with Claude → TTS per segment → Storage)
                 └─ jobs: reels 2–10 in parallel (reuse the warm prompt cache)
browser polls GET /api/documents/:id every 2s and plays reels as they become ready

• The document text + system prompt are a shared, cached prompt prefix: the plan call writes the cache and the 10 script calls read it, so a full document costs ~2.25× its tokens instead of ~11×.
• Scripts are strict JSON (src/lib/schema.ts) via structured outputs, validated with zod, retried once.
• Voiceover is one clip per segment (beats, quiz question, quiz answer, outro). ElevenLabs gives exact word timestamps; OpenAI TTS timing is estimated from word length + punctuation and rescaled to the real clip length. With no TTS key, reels play silently with captions (or with the device's built-in voice).
• Reels render live in the browser from JSON + audio — no server-side video.
• Stuck jobs self-heal when a client polls (healIfStuck).

Key files: src/lib/pipeline.ts, src/lib/claude.ts, src/lib/tts.ts, src/components/reel/* (player), src/components/reel/use-playback.ts (timing engine), supabase/migrations/* (schema + RLS + buckets).

Setup

1. Supabase — create a project, then apply supabase/migrations/20261015000000_init.sql (SQL editor, or supabase db push). It creates the tables, RLS policies, and the private documents and audio buckets.
   • Auth → URL configuration: Site URL https://unspool.cc; add redirect URL https://unspool.cc/auth/callback (and http://localhost:3000/auth/callback for dev).
   • Auth → Providers: enable Email (magic link) and Google (Google Cloud OAuth client; callback https://<project>.supabase.co/auth/v1/callback).
2. Stripe — add STRIPE_SECRET_KEY. Create a webhook endpoint at https://unspool.cc/api/stripe/webhook for checkout.session.completed, checkout.session.async_payment_succeeded, customer.subscription.created|updated|deleted and set STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET. Enable the Customer Portal. Prices are inline by default ($2.49 per doc, $7.99/mo); override with PRICE_*_CENTS or STRIPE_PRICE_SUBSCRIPTION.
3. AI — ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, plus OPENAI_API_KEY (or ELEVENLABS_API_KEY) for voiceover.
4. Vercel — import the repo, add the env vars from .env.example, set CRON_SECRET (daily cleanup of anonymous uploads older than 7 days) and JOB_SECRET. If Deployment Protection is on for previews, enable "Protection Bypass for Automation" so internal job calls work (VERCEL_AUTOMATION_BYPASS_SECRET is picked up automatically).
5. Domain — add unspool.cc in Vercel → Domains, then at Namecheap set an A record @ → 76.76.21.21 and a CNAME www → cname.vercel-dns.com (or switch nameservers to Vercel).

cp .env.example .env.local   # fill in
npm install
npm run dev

Product rules (from the spec)

• Free: reel 1 of every document + all 10 titles/hooks. Unlock per document or subscribe for unlimited.
• FREE_UPLOADS_PER_DAY (default 3) per IP / device / account; subscribers get SUBSCRIBER_UPLOADS_PER_DAY.
• GENERATE_LOCKED_REELS_EAGERLY=false defers reels 2–10 until unlock to cut AI cost.
• Files are private (service-role access behind per-request ownership checks, RLS on every table), deletable from the reel menu or library, and anonymous never-unlocked uploads auto-delete after 7 days.