Helm

Keep strategy on course.

Helm is an AI team member that keeps quarterly outcomes aligned — listening to the conversations where strategy happens, turning signals into outcome charters, and nudging teams when strategic drift begins.

---

The problem

Strategy rarely fails during planning. It drifts during execution.

• Direction drifts quietly — New priorities appear without deliberate comparison to the original plan.
• Trade-offs disappear — Teams rarely record what stopped in order to pursue something new.
• Decisions lose context — By the time direction reaches teams, the reasoning behind it is gone.

---

What Helm is

Helm is a team member responsible for strategic coherence.

Helm listens where strategy actually happens — in meetings, Slack discussions, and planning conversations. It turns those signals into draft Outcome Charters, helps leadership align before the quarter begins, and keeps teams connected to those outcomes as the quarter unfolds. When alignment fades, Helm nudges the team to reconnect.

How Helm works

1. Helm listens where strategy happens — Meeting transcripts, strategy discussions, and Slack conversations feed into Helm.
2. Helm turns signals into draft outcomes — Related signals cluster into draft Outcome Charters.
3. Helm prepares alignment before the quarter — Leadership reviews and anchors outcomes before the quarter begins.
4. Helm creates shared alignment threads — Each outcome has a shared Slack thread with full context.
5. Helm notices when alignment fades — Helm detects inactivity and nudges the team to reconnect.
6. Helm preserves strategic memory — When priorities shift, Helm records what replaced what.

---

Outcome Charters

Helm centers quarterly planning around Outcome Charters. Each charter captures:

• the outcome being pursued
• the metric that defines success
• the reasoning behind the decision
• the trade-offs required to pursue it

Once aligned, outcomes become Anchored to the quarter. If an outcome is removed or loses momentum, Helm marks it Adrift, preserving visibility into how strategy evolves.

---

What Helm is not

Helm is not a task manager, sprint planning tool, roadmap manager, or OKR platform. Helm sits one level above execution, ensuring the organization stays aligned on which outcomes matter this quarter and why.

---

Status

Helm is currently in private prototype. The codebase is source-available so others can explore the ideas and learn from the implementation.

---

Setup

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+ (or 20+)
• npm

Install

git clone <repository-url> helm
cd helm
npm install

Environment

Copy .env.example to .env.local and fill in values as needed. Environment variables are optional for running the dev server.

cp .env.example .env.local

Database (Prisma) — After pulling schema changes, apply migrations to the same SQLite file as DATABASE_URL in .env.local (default file:./dev.db). The Prisma CLI loads .env by default, not .env.local, so either duplicate DATABASE_URL into .env or run:

DATABASE_URL="file:./dev.db" npx prisma migrate deploy

If the app throws The column … does not exist in the current database, that file is missing migrations (or you migrated a different path than Next.js uses).

Google sign-in and Google Drive (Outcome Charters)

• In Google Cloud Console, use the same OAuth client as AUTH_GOOGLE_ID / AUTH_GOOGLE_SECRET.
• Enable Google Drive API and Google Docs API for the project.
• On the OAuth consent screen, add the scopes for Drive file access and Google Docs that Helm requests when an organization owner clicks Connect Google Drive in Settings → Integrations (incremental consent after sign-in).
• The first Helm sign-in uses only basic profile scopes; Drive/Docs access is granted in that second step.
• For Choose charter folder, enable the Google Picker API in the same GCP project as AUTH_GOOGLE_ID, create an API key (type: Browser key / application restrictions HTTP referrers), restrict APIs to Google Picker API (or leave unrestricted only while testing), and set NEXT_PUBLIC_GOOGLE_PICKER_API_KEY in .env.local. Under Website restrictions, add every origin you actually use, e.g. http://localhost:3000/* and http://127.0.0.1:3000/* — opening the app via 127.0.0.1 while the key only allows localhost produces “The API developer key is invalid.” After changing .env.local, restart npm run dev so Next.js picks up NEXT_PUBLIC_* values. Helm passes Picker setAppId using your project number from AUTH_GOOGLE_ID (required by Google alongside the API key).
• If you set AUTH_URL / NEXTAUTH_URL, use the real site origin only (e.g. http://localhost:3000 or http://127.0.0.1:3000). Do not append /* or other wildcards — that becomes a URL path /%2A, produces GET /%2A 404 in the dev terminal, and breaks NextAuth session fetch (ClientFetchError: Failed to fetch).
• If the dev log shows a cross-origin warning for 127.0.0.1 and /_next/*, Helm’s next.config lists 127.0.0.1 in allowedDevOrigins so those requests are allowed; restart the dev server after pulling that change. If you use another hostname (e.g. a LAN IP), add that hostname to the same array or dev assets may return 403.

Run development server

npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000 in your browser.

New organizations complete organization name, primary team chat (owner), team you lead (each member), and fiscal calendar (first month of the next quarter and which fiscal quarter Q1–Q4 that is — Helm infers fiscal year start; owner) on /onboarding/org-setup before using Quarter and Outcomes without Demo Mode.

npm run dev uses Turbopack (next dev --turbo) for faster incremental builds. If you hit tooling issues, use npm run dev:webpack (classic Webpack dev server).

If Turbopack logs errors about fonts.gstatic.com, @vercel/turbopack-next/internal/font/google/font, or POST … 500 on app routes

• Helm uses a system font stack (no next/font/google download) so dev works offline and avoids that Turbopack path. If you still see font-related build errors, try npm run dev:webpack or rm -rf .next && npm run dev.

If you see ChunkLoadError / “Loading chunk app/layout failed (timeout)” in dev

• Stop the server, delete the build cache, and start again: rm -rf .next && npm run dev
• Hard-refresh the browser (or disable cache in DevTools) so the client is not requesting stale /_next/static/chunks/… files.
• Projects on iCloud Drive / network-synced folders can compile slowly; moving the repo to a local disk often fixes intermittent chunk timeouts.

If npm install fails (for example due to certificate or network issues), run it locally in the project directory and ensure Node.js 18+ and npm are available.

If you see Google token refresh / could not reach Google when using Drive from Settings, Node cannot reach oauth2.googleapis.com (VPN, firewall, or broken IPv6 DNS is common). Stop the server and run npm run dev:ipv4 (or npm run dev:webpack:ipv4) instead of npm run dev, or fix network access to Google.

Scripts

Script	Description
npm run dev	Dev server (Turbopack)
npm run dev:webpack	Dev server (Webpack)
npm run build	Build for production
npm run lint	Run ESLint
npm run format	Format with Prettier
npm run typecheck	Run TypeScript check

---

License

Helm is source-available. The code is published publicly so others can explore the ideas behind the product and learn from the implementation. Commercial use of this codebase or derivative works is not permitted without explicit permission.

See the LICENSE file for details.