Changelog · release notes
What we shipped.
Every Nova release — features, fixes and the quiet hardening underneath. Newest first.
- What You Owe, And What You're Owed
Track money owed to you, not just money going out
- You can now capture “Money owed to me” yourself — payer, amount and an optional due date — and it appears in the Money bucket next to bills and renewals. Manual entry for now; nothing is read from your inbox for this yet.
- Search and link previews now carry the actual promise: Nova prepares. You approve.
- Quiet Nights, Nothing Lost
Held during quiet hours, delivered as one summary afterwards
- Alerts that arrive during your quiet hours are now held and delivered together as one summary once the window closes — they are no longer dropped.
- Each kind of alert can have its own quiet hours and limits: deadline chases, device alerts, and billing notices are tuned separately.
- A new Alert delivery history page shows every attempt Nova made — notification, email, or held — with the reason and the time.
- Settings now shows a plain Push health verdict with the exact steps to fix a stale or blocked registration.
- No Missed Alerts
If your phone blocks notifications, Nova emails you instead
- When an urgent card can't reach any of your devices by notification, Nova sends the same alert to your email — one message, never a duplicate.
- If notifications are blocked or your browser doesn't support them, Nova now says so plainly and tells you email will be used.
- Behind the scenes Nova records every failed alert with a timestamp, so we can see and fix delivery problems instead of guessing.
- Alerts That Reach You
Nova can now alert your phone even when Nova is closed
- Turn on “Alerts on this device” and Nova sends a real notification to that phone or laptop — you no longer have to keep Nova open.
- A Test button proves it: close Nova, tap Test, and the alert still arrives.
- If notifications are blocked, Nova now tells you exactly which setting to change on your device instead of failing silently.
- Nova can confirm whether the app is actually installed on the device you’re holding — and guides you again if it isn’t.
- Honest limit: iPhone requires Nova to be added to your home screen first, and browsers can still switch notifications off at any time.
- Nothing Unexplained
Your home screen now explains itself to a first-time user
- Every number on your home screen has a small (i) you can tap for one plain sentence explaining what it means.
- The first time you land on Home, Nova walks you through it in four short steps — and a “?” in the header replays it any time.
- Cards no longer show technical phrasing. Each one carries a plain category — Money, Renewal, Reply — and one line saying why it matters to you.
- Things Nova simply filed for you (receipts, orders) now sit quietly in a small list instead of looking like something waiting for your approval.
- Home now speaks your language: business users see customer and supplier wording, household users see family and household wording.
- Everything Presses Back
Buttons, confirmations and loading states now feel like one app
- Every button in Nova now presses in when you tap it, and keyboard focus is clearly visible everywhere.
- Confirmations for deleting things are now Nova's own calm dialogs instead of the browser's grey pop-up.
- Slower screens show a shape of what is coming instead of a spinning circle, and quiet failures now speak up.
- In light mode, the photographic sections on the homepage stay dark and cinematic instead of washing out — the copy over them is fully readable in both themes.
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- Who You're Actually Buying From
The person behind Nova is now named on the legal pages
- Terms and Privacy now state plainly who operates Nova, where post reaches them, and that there is no VAT registration — Nova is run by one person as a sole proprietor.
- Terms also carries the exact merchant-of-record wording our payment processor requires, so it is clear who bills you and who handles returns.
- Thirty Days To Change Your Mind
The refund promise got longer, clearer, and its own page
- The money-back window on your first paid month is now 30 days, up from 14. One email to support is enough — no reason required, no forms.
- Refunds now have a dedicated page at /refunds covering how to ask, how long it takes, renewals, and what happens if a paid feature simply doesn't work.
- Every place that mentioned refunds — pricing, checkout, FAQ, terms, help — now says the same thing.
- A Note When Something Is Waiting
If you've been away and something real is waiting, Nova now says so
- Nova can send one quiet-spell note by email: what it caught while you were away, what's still waiting for your approval, and anything with a deadline this week. Nothing more.
- It only sends when there is something specific to say. No 'we miss you', no countdowns, no invented urgency — if nothing is waiting, nothing is sent.
- One note at most every two weeks, and you can switch it off in Settings → Notifications. Unsubscribed and bounced addresses are skipped automatically.
- The Alert That Never Arrived
Renewal alerts and weekly digests are running for real, and now they're watched
- The daily plan-and-usage alert job was firing on schedule but hitting a path the live site didn't serve yet, so it never once ran. It runs now, and the first pass found a renewal notice waiting to go out.
- The weekly digest and re-engagement jobs were checked the same way and both run cleanly against the live site.
- Every scheduled job is now on the inactivity watchlist, so a job that quietly stops raises an alert instead of going unnoticed. A test keeps the list honest as new jobs are added.
- Real Money Off, Not Free Days
Referral credit lands on the invoice, and the preview window is honest
- Inviting someone now earns R149 credit for both of you — a full month of Nova Personal taken off the invoice, instead of extra days on a preview that can't connect a mailbox.
- Checkout shows the credit before you pay and applies it as a discount, so what the page promises is what the card gets charged. Invite three people and it stretches across your first three months.
- The free preview is 30 days, not a year. A year of a window that unlocks nothing is not a favour — 30 days is long enough to judge Nova and honest about what happens next.
- Credit is marked as used the moment a paid plan starts, so the same reward can't be spent twice.
- Nothing Creeps Up On You
Plan and usage notices, a fuller data export, and a request tracker
- Nova now tells you before things change: a notice on Home and by email when your plan is about to renew, end or run out of free days, and when you're near your monthly AI allowance. Each one arrives once, never on repeat.
- Your data export got fuller — Ask Nova conversations, cards, memory, billing records, and every file you've uploaded with a working download link that lasts a week.
- Your plan page now shows the status of every export or deletion you've asked for, so a request that stalled looks different to one that finished.
- Behind the scenes, one audit log records privacy requests, plan changes and billing events, filterable and downloadable for the record.
- Your Usage, In Writing
Billing now shows six months of usage and lets you download it
- A new usage report on your plan page shows AI calls, failed calls, Ask Nova conversations and messages, month by month, for the last six months.
- It also breaks down which parts of Nova used AI on your behalf, and lists your billing lines in the same place.
- Download the whole thing as CSV for a spreadsheet, or JSON if you'd rather keep the raw record.
- Yours Only, Even Behind The Scenes
Three internal helpers now refuse to answer for anyone but you
- The helper that learns your writing style from an edited draft can no longer be triggered from outside Nova's own learning step, so nobody can write learned preferences into someone else's account.
- Card ranking is recalculated only for the person asking — Nova's nightly job is unaffected.
- Plan checks answer only about your own account, instead of revealing whether another account is paying.
- When It Renews, What Happens Then
Your plan now shows a countdown, plain-English next steps, and how your invites are doing
- Billing now says when your plan renews — in days, not just a date — and spells out what happens on that day: a charge, an ending, or nothing at all.
- Home has a Your Plan card showing what's included, how many AI actions you've used today, and the same renewal countdown, so you never have to go looking.
- The invite page now shows invites sent, how many people joined, and how many free days you've actually earned, with anything still waiting on a sign-up called out.
- One Limit, Stated Up Front
Invite rewards now have a ceiling, and the readiness board covers email too
- Inviting friends can now earn you up to 90 free days in total, across three invites. Your link keeps working after that and every new joiner still gets their 30 days — you just stop collecting more.
- The limit is written on the invite surfaces instead of buried, so you always know how many rewarded invites you have left.
- The readiness board now also checks that transactional email is really being delivered, and that the daily health alert has an address to land in.
- Your Plan, Your Link
Billing now spells out what your plan includes, and your invite link is right there to copy
- Your plan page now lists what you actually get: how many connected email and calendar accounts you have and how many are in use, your AI fair-use allowance, which channels are covered, and the reminder that Nova still waits for your approval.
- A Free Preview account is now called Free Preview instead of 'no active plan', and paid Personal correctly shows the one connected account it includes.
- Your referral link is now shown with Copy and Share buttons on your plan page, not only on the invite page, and it turns up in the command palette under 'Invite a friend'.
- Settings gained a 'What's included' link and now explains that referrals give both of you 30 days free.
- Mail To Support Actually Lands
Email sent to the support address now arrives in one place, and we can prove it
- Mail to the support address is recorded as a support request and shows up beside form submissions, so nothing depends on a second inbox someone forgets to open.
- Auto-replies and provider retries are ignored, so one message stays one message.
- The readiness board only calls support delivery done once a real email has actually arrived — a DNS record on its own now reads 'unproven' instead of 'fine'.
- Which Account, Which Password
Connections names the mailbox, and you can change your password without a reset email
- Gmail, Outlook, calendar and IMAP connections now read 'Connected as you@example.com', so anyone with a personal and a work account can see exactly which one Nova is reading.
- Settings has a proper 'Change your password' section. Your current password confirms it is you, and no reset email is involved.
- The readiness board now checks, against public DNS, whether the support address can receive mail at all — so a promise that a founder reads every message can be verified instead of assumed.
- Tested In Safari
First real pass in Safari's engine, plus an honest note on the legal pages
- Every test so far had run in Chrome's engine. The homepage, sign-in and pricing were checked in WebKit (Safari) at iPhone and desktop widths: no layout breaks, no horizontal overflow, no Safari-only errors.
- Two Safari differences fixed: an installed iPhone app could still be nudged to install itself, and the read-aloud button could stay stuck on Stop because Safari does not always report when speech ends.
- Terms and Privacy now say plainly that they were written by the founder and have not been reviewed by a lawyer.
- On narrow phones in Safari the menu button could sit just off the edge of the screen. The header now drops the currency switcher (still in the menu) so Sign in and the menu always fit.
- That's My Number
Connections now shows which WhatsApp number Nova is linked to
- WhatsApp links by QR code, so the number was learned automatically and never shown back to you. Connections now reads 'Connected as +27 •• ••• 6908' so you can confirm it is genuinely your number.
- The same line appears in the post-connect step, with a plain note to disconnect and relink if the number is not yours.
- Only the country code and last four digits are shown, and the number is only ever visible to the account it belongs to.
- Sign In Without Hunting
Signing in from a phone no longer means opening a menu first
- On a phone, Sign in was only behind the menu button — returning users had to open a menu or scroll to find it. It now sits permanently in the top bar, next to the menu, and still fits at 320px wide.
- The theme switch was a 36px target on phones. It is now a comfortable 44px tap area with the same 36px look.
- Checked the rest for the same problem: the main Start free action is already above the fold on a phone, a persistent bar keeps it reachable down long pages, nothing overflows in landscape, pinch-to-zoom is not disabled, and keyboard tab order on desktop reaches every primary action in order.
- Check Your Email
Signing up no longer looks like it failed
- Email confirmation stays on — it is a real security control. What was missing was the screen saying so: new accounts were bounced back to an empty form with no message at all.
- Signup now ends on a clear 'check your email to activate Nova' step, with the address shown, a resend action, and honest timing.
- Setup-time copy corrected to 'about a minute' now that confirming your email is an honest part of the flow.
- Also fixed: a real reset-password link could land on the 'request a link' form instead of the new-password form, because the recovery marker had already been consumed.
- Your Plan, Shown Correctly
Settings no longer fails silently when reading which plan you are on
- The plan panel in Settings asked the database to sort subscriptions by a column that does not exist, so the request failed and the panel fell back to showing nothing — even for someone with an active plan.
- Fixed by sorting on the date the subscription actually started. Found by signing in as a brand-new account and watching the real request fail, not by reading the code.
- One Honest Launch Board
Nova can now show exactly what is still standing between it and fully live
- A new internal readiness board checks the real things — the domain it is actually served from, whether the sitemap and policy pages answer without signing in, whether checkout is in live mode, whether each background job has genuinely run, and whether a real message has ever been delivered.
- Every line states which signal it read, so no verdict has to be taken on trust, and unfinished work is grouped by the person who can actually close it.
- Checks that cannot be answered from inside the product say so plainly instead of guessing.
- Half-Broken Counts As Broken
Nova's own health screen now names a job that only half worked
- Background jobs that finish partly done — some users processed, some skipped — used to show up only as 'nothing has succeeded recently'. They are now called out by name, with the reason, the moment it happens.
- A job that keeps half-failing no longer sits on a green light while its last full success ages quietly in the background.
- Straight Answers
A real status message during an outage, honest meeting lengths, and cards that trace back
- The status page can now carry a written incident note — what's broken, that we know, and when to expect the next update — instead of only coloured dots.
- Calendar entries can record an end time. Nova stops assuming every appointment is exactly an hour, so 'tight turnaround' warnings are based on the real gap.
- Cards Nova derives from an earlier card now keep a pointer back to it, so 'why does this exist' always resolves to something real.
- You can add a date yourself under Watching — with a start and an end time — so Nova can spot a genuine clash instead of guessing how long something takes.
- Two Steps To Sign In
Nova now has its own two-step sign-in, with backup codes that tell you the truth
- Settings → Security → Two-step sign-in turns on a real authenticator code. Scan the QR with any authenticator app, confirm one code, and every future sign-in asks for a second step.
- You get ten single-use backup codes, shown once. Nova only ever stores a hashed version, so nobody — including us — can read them back to you.
- Honest about the limit: a backup code can't stand in for your authenticator, so using one switches two-step sign-in off and asks you to set it up again. The screen says so before you use it.
- Turning it off needs a current code first, so a borrowed session can't quietly remove your second step.
- Which Way The Money Goes
Nova now tells money you're owed apart from money you owe — and the site stopped underselling what already works
- Money cards now say which direction the rand is going. An invoice you sent reads as money to collect; a supplier bill reads as money to pay. When the wording genuinely doesn't say, Nova says it can't tell rather than guessing — and receivables no longer get flagged urgent as though a payment were due from you.
- Corrected three places where the site claimed less than the product does: WhatsApp and connected-inbox reading were still listed as coming soon after both went live, the comparison table still said WhatsApp approvals only finish inside Nova when a reply there now approves them, and the “what can Nova see” answer still described the forward-only days.
- The “not built yet” band on the homepage now lists two things that genuinely don't exist — Slack, and Nova's own two-step sign-in — instead of two things that shipped.
- Settings That Actually Do Something
Quiet mode is now obeyed, the app loads lighter, and setup pays attention to your answers
- Your notification setting was being saved but never read. It is now enforced: Quiet never pushes a daily briefing at all, Normal pushes only when there are two or more things worth your attention, and Strict pushes on a single one.
- The homepage was quietly downloading around 170KB of charting and diagram code that only two signed-in screens ever use. It now loads with those files left behind — four preloaded files on first visit instead of six, which matters most on mobile data.
- The agent library now uses what you told us during setup: if you signed up for business, business agents appear first with a “For you” badge, and the same for personal. Nothing is hidden — the order just stops being alphabetical-by-accident.
- Signup now asks you to confirm you are 18 or older, because Nova reads real mail and calendars and that is not a product for minors.
- The privacy page now names where your data physically lives instead of implying it: AWS eu-west-1, Dublin, Ireland — so you can judge the POPIA question for yourself rather than trusting a vague sentence.
- Say The Quiet Part
Why Nova asks first, why it costs what it costs, and why it only has one memory
- The homepage trust band now says plainly that this category is moving towards more autonomy and Nova is deliberately going the other way — and backs it with the three real mechanisms: the approval rule enforced in the database, the ten-second undo hold on anything that leaves your account, and the check that refuses a draft with unfilled blanks or mangled amounts instead of sending it.
- New on /pricing: an honest explanation of why Nova costs less — one focused AI step per card rather than a swarm of agents, three connections instead of a marketplace to subsidise, priced in rand against South African incomes, and a small operation with no sales team. It also says who Nova is the wrong product for.
- Nova's memory is now named as one memory rather than three: something learned from your mail is available to a calendar card or a renewal reminder without you telling it twice.
- Ask First, Provably
Why you don't have to take our word for the approval rule
- The homepage trust band now names the actual mechanism instead of just promising good behaviour: Nova's own server is refused permission to mark anything as sent unless your approval was recorded first, the approval requirement cannot be switched off by anyone including us, and every approval is written to an append-only record.
- New on /compare: an honest “Nova vs doing nothing” comparison against a spreadsheet, a reminder and your own memory — including a plain statement of where doing nothing still wins, because most people arriving here aren't switching from another AI tool.
- Never Guess On A Real Send
WhatsApp replies now ask when a number could mean two things
- If Nova had sent you more than one list recently, replying "1" could have pointed at the wrong item. It now asks which one you mean instead of guessing, because that reply approves something that actually leaves your mailbox.
- Nova's own confirmation messages ("Snoozed the gym renewal") no longer count as a new list, so a later "yes" can't quietly land on whatever Nova last mentioned.
- What Nova has handled on your Home screen now opens the full month, so the value that builds up is one tap away rather than out of sight.
- Someone Asked You Something
Real questions in your inbox now come with a reply ready to send
- Someone asking "is this still available?", a client asking what something would cost, or a friend asking if you're free on Saturday used to reach no card at all. Those are now caught as an enquiry, marked as needing you, and put near the top.
- Each one arrives with a short reply already drafted in your voice, so answering is a read and a tap. Nothing is sent until you approve it, and you still get the hold-to-undo window afterwards.
- The draft never answers on your behalf. It won't confirm a price, a date or that something is still available — it acknowledges the question and says you'll confirm, because Nova doesn't know those things.
- Anything mentioning an invoice, a statement or an amount due stays money, so a payable can never be re-read as a question to answer.
- A rand amount written the South African way — "R4 200.00", with a space — was invisible to Nova. It counts now.
- Ordinary Life, Properly Watched
Price increases, appointments and a briefing that leads with the day
- A subscription or gym fee going up rarely says "price change" — it says the fee "will increase". Nova now catches that wording, so a quiet R50-a-month rise surfaces before it starts coming off your account.
- An insurance auto-renewal was being labelled "Bill due", which hid the one thing that mattered: it renews on a date, at a new premium, unless you act. It now reads as a renewal.
- Dentist, doctor and restaurant confirmations are recognised as things in your day. Previously only work-style "meetings" were.
- A vehicle registration on a licence reminder was being read as an amount of money, putting a fictional R482,991 at the top of a briefing. Nova now only calls something an amount when the mail actually says R or ZAR.
- An overdue bill can no longer appear under "Worth a look" — being late is not an opportunity. And the briefing no longer hands you an empty priorities list while urgent items sit above it.
- Money, The Right Way Round
Bills, receipts and double-bookings now read correctly
- A supplier invoice that still needed paying was being filed as a receipt, as if it were already settled. Anything with a due date is now treated as money out, not money in.
- Cards from your inbox now carry the rand amount printed in the mail, so the biggest item is genuinely at the top of your briefing instead of everything looking equal.
- Clashes in a calendar you typed in by hand were never being looked for. They are now — and an event that appears twice from two sources no longer reads as a double-booking with itself.
- A dated deadline, like a final tax notice, no longer ranks below a small subscription receipt.
- Briefing Speaks Plainly
Today's briefing was failing to generate
- Nova was asking for a briefing without actually handing over the shape it expected, so the answer came back in the wrong form and was thrown away. The shape is now enforced properly, and a partly-shaped answer is repaired instead of lost.
- The same problem was quietly waiting in the watched-items setup — fixed there too, before anyone hit it.
- Connections In Reach
Connections now has its own place in the sidebar
- Managing which accounts are linked, and how far each is trusted, used to be tucked behind other screens. It now sits in the main navigation next to Agents.
- Privacy & data stays separate — that one is for exporting or deleting what Nova holds.
- Agent Notes Stick
Notes your agents wanted to remember were being thrown away
- When an agent noticed something worth remembering, the database refused to store it because the label it used was missing from the allowed list. Those notes are now kept.
- Every other place Nova stores a fixed set of values was re-checked against what the code actually writes, and this was the only remaining mismatch.
- Approve Actually Sends
Approving an external action no longer fails quietly
- Approving a WhatsApp draft, an email or a calendar action put the card into a short hold before sending — and the database was refusing to store that hold, so the approval failed and the card silently stayed a draft. Fixed, and proven with a real WhatsApp message sent by approving a card end to end.
- The ten-second undo hold, the audit trail and the send guards all behaved correctly; only the hold state was being rejected. Nothing was ever sent without an approval on record.
- You Choose What Stays
Downgrading no longer lets Nova pick which connection survives
- If your plan now covers fewer connections than you have attached, Nova pauses scanning all of them and asks you which to keep — it will never quietly drop a mailbox on your behalf.
- The choice screen shows each account, what it covers, and exactly what disconnecting does: access revoked at the provider and everything Nova cached from it deleted. Your approved actions and audit history stay.
- Until you choose, both the hourly sweep and the manual scan stay paused, so nothing is read beyond what your plan covers.
- Quiet Hours, Kept
Quiet hours now follow your clock, and inbound Google mail stops slipping through
- Quiet hours were being compared against the server's clock instead of yours, so a 22:00–07:00 window was really enforced two hours out in South Africa. Nova now reads the window in your own timezone.
- An inbound Google message could be dropped because your mailbox and calendar share one connection record. Nova now resolves that correctly, and logs any connection it replaces so an old one can't quietly linger.
- If a subscription lapses or downgrades to the free preview, Nova stops sweeping the connected mailbox instead of continuing to read it.
- Personal Includes A Connection
Personal now includes one connected account, as it always should have
- A paid Personal plan granted zero connected accounts, so a Personal subscriber couldn't connect Gmail, Outlook, a calendar or WhatsApp at all. Personal now includes one connection, with a second available as a paid add-on.
- Personal subscribers are no longer told to upgrade to Plus just to connect their first account. The free preview still includes no connected accounts — that limit is deliberate, because each connection costs real money per month.
- Approve Means Something
Approving now does the thing — and where it can't, it says so
- WhatsApp drafts genuinely send when you approve them, through the same safety net the email path uses: your consent record, your trust setting, the draft sanity check, quiet hours, the daily cap and the ten-second undo hold.
- Approving a watcher reminder now closes the underlying item and rolls it to its next date, so a thing you've handled stops coming back.
- Card receipts stopped over-promising. Calendar, expense and renewal cards now say what they really do — Nova records and reminds — instead of claiming a calendar entry or a filing that never happened.
- Notice, Then Approve
The homepage now says what Nova actually does: agents notice, you approve
- The hero line reads 'Agents that notice. You still approve.' — checked against real behaviour before it shipped, not written as an aspiration.
- Every agent page now shows how that agent really runs: its actual check schedule, that it reads only your connected sources, and that it stays silent when nothing qualifies instead of inventing a card.
- Named Agents, Real Sources
Invoice Watcher now ages the email, not the day Nova imported it
- Invoice Watcher was checking when a card was added to Nova. Older inbox mail imported during setup therefore looked brand new and escaped the seven-day check. It now uses the email's real received date and the same money signals as inbox triage, while excluding paid receipts.
- Renewal Radar findings now become a visible review card instead of an audit-only notification row, and Lead Chaser can work from both saved contacts and unresolved lead cards.
- Named agents still share one safe execution engine, but each supported agent now gets its own deterministic, user-scoped source query before that engine runs.
- Agents That Can See
The calendar agent can finally see your connected calendar
- Calendar concierge was only reading events you typed into Nova by hand, so if your only calendar was a connected Google or Outlook account it reported 'nothing coming up' while your real week was full. It now reads the same calendars the clash checker does — connected accounts, subscribed calendars, and manually added events together.
- Cards drafted by an agent were filed under an internal reference instead of the agent's name, which is why every agent showed '0 cards caught' even after it had produced them. Cards are now attributed to the agent that drafted them.
- Printed pages no longer include an empty phone illustration, and a filled button like 'Start free' now prints as readable outlined text instead of a dark block.
- Shareable Links, Printable Pages
Shared links show a real preview image, and printing looks like paper
- Sharing any Nova page on WhatsApp, LinkedIn or X now shows a proper preview picture. The picture we were using was in a format those apps quietly refuse, so every page except the homepage was shared with no image at all.
- Saving or printing a page — the terms, the privacy note, or a card with money on it — now comes out as dark ink on white paper instead of a near-black page. Links print with their address spelled out, and headers and buttons are left off.
- Invites That Actually Count
Invite links work from any page, and Nova now really works offline
- Sharing your invite link sends people to the homepage first. Until now the invite was quietly forgotten from there, so neither of you got the free month. Nova now remembers the invite from wherever it lands until you sign up.
- Nova's offline support was never switching on for real visitors — it does now, so opening Nova with no signal shows your cached pages and a calm offline note instead of the browser's error page.
- With JavaScript switched off, every page still reads normally and now says plainly that signing in and approving need it turned on.
- A mistyped address gets its own 'page not found' title and is kept out of search results.
- Reply To Approve, On WhatsApp
Answer Nova's WhatsApp with 1, 2 or 3 — and it actually happens
- When Nova messages you about what needs you, replying with the number approves that exact item. 'snooze' holds it until tomorrow, 'no' drops it, and 'undo' stops an approved send while it's still being held.
- It runs through the same approval path as tapping the button in the app — the same hold-before-send window, the same check on the draft, and the same respect for anything you've paused. Nothing new was bolted on the side.
- If a reply isn't clearly one of those, Nova says so plainly instead of guessing. It will never approve a real send off the back of a chatty message.
- Added to Home Screen on an iPhone now opens Nova full-screen with the right status bar, and the app's colour matches its splash screen.
- Account Recovery, Tested End To End
Reset links always land on the reset screen, and you can always leave
- Password reset was tested on a real account: the email arrives in seconds, the link works, the new password signs you in and the old one stops working. One gap is fixed — if a reset link ever landed on the homepage instead of the reset screen, Nova now forwards you straight to it.
- Exporting or deleting your account no longer requires finishing setup first. If you sign up and stop halfway, those two pages stay reachable.
- Guards On The Quiet Failures
Nonsense drafts get flagged, idle sessions end themselves, sign-in is throttled
- Before you approve anything, Nova now checks the draft itself for the obvious failures — an unfilled placeholder, a broken amount, repeated garble, an apology instead of a message — and says so right at the Approve button. Nothing gets rewritten silently.
- A draft that fails that check will never go out on its own, even if you've told Nova to handle that kind of thing automatically. It waits for you.
- A signed-in session left untouched for half an hour now signs itself out, with a five-minute warning first. Useful on a shared or borrowed device.
- Sign-in attempts from one connection are now rate-limited, the same way sign-ups already were.
- Light Mode, Verified Inside The App
Every signed-in surface now clears WCAG AA in light mode
- Home, Inbox, Ask Nova, Agents, Memory, Settings, the command palette and every sheet were measured with real colour maths in light mode — the teal, faded ink, category chips and date labels that fell short now don't.
- The Settings toggles gained a visible edge on paper, so on and off are distinguishable at a glance.
- Nova Can Email You Now
Five kinds of email that were written but never sent are now genuinely sending
- Security alerts, the weekly digest, urgent-card escalations and money re-nudges now actually arrive by email from notify.heynova.tech — until today they were composed, logged and thrown away.
- If you haven't given WhatsApp consent, an urgent card that goes unseen now reaches you by email instead of quietly going nowhere.
- Each one is a real message about one specific thing that happened to you. No newsletters, no campaigns — and every email carries a one-click unsubscribe that Nova honours permanently.
- Fixed an honesty bug in the daily ops alert: it used to report 'delivered' whenever the settings looked right, even when nothing had been sent. It now reports what actually happened — queued, suppressed, or failed with the reason.
- Removed the leftover setup instructions for an email provider Nova never ended up using. They were misleading.
- Ten Seconds To Change Your Mind
A real undo window on approve, and disconnect now clears what Nova cached
- Approving something that leaves Nova — an email, a WhatsApp message — now holds for ten seconds with a visible countdown and an Undo button. The hold is kept by the server, not the page, so closing the tab mid-countdown doesn't lose the action, and undoing genuinely stops the send: nothing was dispatched.
- Cards labelled 'Needs review' now ask once more before they act, and say plainly why Nova is unsure.
- Disconnecting a source now also removes what Nova cached from it: stored mail previews, cards it drafted that you never acted on, and the watchers it created. Cards you already acted on stay as history with their content stripped. The approval audit trail is kept — it holds no message content.
- Fixed a real bug found while checking that: disconnecting a Gmail or Calendar account left the stored record untouched because the database refused the update and nobody read the error.
- Nothing Saves Silently
Finished the sweep: every single save now checks whether it worked
- The last 47 places that saved something without checking the result are done — payments records, connected accounts, sign-in history, approvals, agent runs, your name on Home, cancellation feedback. Work that matters now fails loudly; the rest is logged instead of swallowed.
- If saving your name on Home is refused, you get told instead of watching it silently revert.
- Added a check that runs with the tests: if anyone ever adds a save that ignores its result, the build says so. This bug class cannot quietly come back.
- No More Quiet Losses
Hunted down every place a save could fail without telling anyone
- Three more places where the database was refusing what Nova writes: calendar clash cards, forwarded-mail triage cards, watchers for a bill or a deadline, and the record proving a WhatsApp message was withheld for missing consent. All four were being discarded in silence. All four now save.
- Every write that carries your work — a card, a watcher, an approval record, your onboarding answers, a connected account — now fails loudly instead of pretending to succeed. Breadcrumb writes still never block you, but they are logged rather than swallowed.
- Cross-referenced every value list the database enforces against every value the product actually writes, and added tests so the next mismatch is caught by a test rather than by you losing work.
- Reading a list back from a connected account now copes with either shape the provider returns, so an empty list can no longer be mistaken for a renamed field.
- The Cards Come Back
Nova was reading your mail and silently throwing away every card it found
- The database only accepted a small set of card categories, and the categories Nova actually produces — receipt, bill, invoice, renewal, deadline, meeting, order, watcher — were all refused. Worse, the error was never read, so the hourly scan reported success while creating nothing.
- Fixed at the source: the accepted category list now matches what the product produces, and a rejected card now raises instead of disappearing. Two other invalid values (a card difficulty and a card status) that quietly blocked calendar-clash and vendor-watch cards are fixed too.
- Recovered the backlog: the mail Nova had already read was re-classified and 10 real cards were restored, so Home and the briefing show real work instead of nothing.
- Added a regression test asserting every category the pipeline can emit is one the database accepts.
- WhatsApp, Honestly
WhatsApp sending actually works now — and the copy stops promising a reply flow
- WhatsApp messages could never leave: the send used a provider endpoint that does not exist, and looked for your number in a field the provider doesn't return. Both fixed and proven with a real message delivered to a real number.
- The site said you could approve a Nova draft by replying 1 on WhatsApp. That was never built — inbound WhatsApp replies are only recorded. Every page now says what is true: Nova pings you on WhatsApp, you approve in Nova with one tap.
- WhatsApp was described in a few places as a source Nova reads for things to catch. It isn't yet — it is an outbound approval channel. Help, pricing comparison and the solve pages now say so.
- The morning WhatsApp briefing no longer ends with reply instructions it couldn't honour; it links you into Nova instead.
- Light Mode Legibility
Warnings, confidence dots and the wordmark now read on paper
- In light mode the Nova wordmark was painted white on white — the top of every letter was invisible. Fixed.
- Amber warnings, red failures and green confirmations were tuned for the dark theme and washed out on the light one. They now use darker equivalents of the same colours.
- Confidence dots on cards used white, which disappeared on a white card. They now follow the theme.
- The cinematic panels on How it works stay deliberately dark in light mode, as designed.
- Quiet Agents
An agent with nothing to report now says nothing
- Agents that had nothing to look at were still being asked to write something, and answered with an apology. They now stay silent until there is something real to show you.
- Fixed two rendering faults that logged errors on every page, including a brief mismatch when your light or dark preference was applied.
- Proof, Not Promises
A connection that says it works now has to prove it
- Before Nova sends a reply you approved, it checks that the connection it is about to send through can genuinely reach your mailbox — rather than trusting the label and failing after you pressed approve.
- If no connection can be verified, Nova stops and tells you, instead of sending into an error.
- Right Calendar
Nova was asking the wrong account for your diary
- When one Google sign-in produced two connections, Nova could ask the mail one for your calendar and be refused. It now checks which connection can genuinely read your calendar and uses that one.
- Calendar clash detection now covers calendars you connected with Google or Outlook, not only calendars added by link.
- Grounded
The same email twice, and scans that always come back
- Forwarding the same email to Nova twice by mistake used to leave you two identical cards. Nova now recognises the content, not just the message, and keeps one.
- A scan can no longer hang forever. Requests to your mail provider give up after twenty seconds and retry, and the 'Reading your recent mail' button always comes back.
- 'This wasn't right' now sits on cards in the Inbox too, not only on Home.
- Dates and times read the same way everywhere. One shared format instead of four slightly different ones.
- On a phone, the back button closes whatever is open — the search palette, the country picker — instead of leaving the page underneath it.
- Search now finds your agents by name, alongside cards and memory.
- Steady
Tapping twice can't send twice
- Approving is now safe to tap twice. A second tap while the first is still working is ignored, and the same action can never go out to a provider more than once.
- An agent that watches the same thing every hour used to be able to leave you a near-identical card each time. One card per subject per day now.
- New cards found by a background scan appear on Home and Inbox on their own, without you pulling to refresh.
- The setup quiz remembers which question you were on, not just your answers, and says so when you come back.
- The Business plan no longer describes itself as being for 'small teams' — Nova is one login per account today, and the page now says that plainly.
- Clarity
Straighter answers on pricing, and easier things to tap
- The setup quiz promised your first briefing and then asked for an email address instead. If you are not signed in, it now offers to create your account and start right there — with the slower email hand-off kept as a clearly-labelled alternative.
- Business does not include team seats yet. That was true, but it was buried in an FAQ. It now says so on the Business plan itself, before you choose it.
- Buttons on the pricing page were smaller than a comfortable thumb. Every one now meets the full tap size.
- 'Confidence: medium' is a statistics word, not an instruction. Nova now says what it means — 'worth a quick look before you approve'.
- Fixed a rare case where a section of a page could stay invisible if your browser never reported it as on-screen.
- Agents
Agents now watch real things, and Nova spots calendar clashes
- Your agents were running on an empty desk. A named agent like Invoice watcher ran on schedule but was handed nothing to look at, so it could never find anything. Each agent now gathers its own real material first — unpaid invoices ageing past a week, leads that have gone quiet, renewals and licences falling due, receipts to file — and only runs when there is something genuinely there. A quiet week now produces silence instead of an empty card.
- A schedule that said 'Daily at 08:00' actually ran every hour, 24 times a day. Schedules are now honoured exactly as written — daily, weekly on a named day, or monthly.
- Nova now notices double-bookings and impossible turnarounds on your connected calendar: two meetings that overlap, or a Sandton meeting ending ten minutes before one in Rosebank. It tells you and waits — Nova never moves, cancels or creates an event.
- Each agent now shows how many cards it has actually caught in the last 30 days, so you can tell a working agent from a decorative one.
- Scanning
Nova now reads a connected inbox on its own
- Until now, a connected email account only reached Nova when a new message happened to arrive. Anything already sitting in the inbox — including everything from before you connected — was never read unless you pressed Scan my connected accounts now. Nova now sweeps every connected mail account on its hourly run, so a connection starts working on its own.
- Money detection was quietly broken for dollar, pound and euro amounts: a receipt reading $120.00 was treated as having no amount at all, so it never became a card. Fixed. Receipts, failed payments and overdue notices from any sender are now caught, not just from a short list of local providers.
- One email arriving under two connected Google accounts used to be able to produce two cards. Messages are now matched across your accounts, so you see it once.
- Resilience
Half-typed work survives, and phone photos read straight
- If your session times out or a tab reloads while you're mid-sentence, Nova now keeps what you typed. This covers the Ask Nova composer and the Add to memory form — the two places you type something worth losing. Drafts stay on your device and clear once you send or save.
- Photos taken on a phone are now straightened and resized before Nova reads them. A 9 MB camera capture becomes under 2 MB, uploads faster on mobile data, and a sideways-held page no longer reads sideways.
- Running out of your daily AI actions now reads as a calm pause rather than a red error. The wording is unchanged: nothing is charged, your cards keep working, and AI replies return tomorrow.
- Profile
A profile picture, and an optional spoken briefing
- Nova can now read your briefing aloud, and you can add a profile photo. Set the photo in Profile — it shows in the sidebar, the phone header and next to your greeting on Home, and falls back to your initials if you haven't set one.
- New opt-in setting: Spoken briefing. Turn it on in Settings and a Read aloud button appears on Home and on your briefing. It uses your browser's own built-in text-to-speech to read the briefing you already see — it isn't a custom AI voice, it costs nothing, and nothing is sent anywhere.
- It never plays by itself. Speaking only starts when you tap, and stops the moment you tap stop or leave the page. The setting is off until you turn it on.
- Briefing
Today's briefing now has its own tab
- The briefing used to sit as a small card on Home that you had to open. It's now a permanent tab next to Home and Inbox, opening straight onto the full brief — what needs you, opportunities, priorities and wins.
- Home keeps a one-line preview of the same briefing, and the whole card is now tappable rather than hiding a small Open link.
- On a phone the tab bar stays at five items: Home, Briefing, Inbox, Ask Nova, Agents. Memory stays in the desktop sidebar, the command palette and Home, where it was already reached from.
- Home
'Mission Control' is now simply 'Home'
- The signed-in home screen was called Mission Control. It's now Home — in the sidebar, the page heading, the browser tab, the command palette, the settings copy and the first-visit hint. Nothing about the page itself changed.
- Older entries below still say Mission Control, because that's what it was called at the time.
- A clean page every time
Ask Nova now opens on a blank page, not your last conversation
- Opening Ask Nova used to drop you back into the most recent chat. It now opens on an empty page with nothing selected in history — the way you'd expect. Past chats load only when you pick one, and each has its own link you can return to or refresh.
- A new chat no longer creates an empty entry in your history. The conversation is saved the moment you actually ask something.
- The daily and monthly AI counts now say which is which, so two numbers on one screen no longer read as a contradiction.
- Small tidy-ups: New chat shows when it's the current state, chat search says what it didn't match, and a brand-new account sees a sentence instead of a bare 'no conversations'.
- Suggested memories
Memory now suggests entries from what Nova can already see
- If you've connected a calendar, Nova offers a short list of recurring commitments and dated items it found there — as suggestions you approve one by one. Nothing is remembered until you say yes.
- Nova also suggests key people based on senders that have reached your Nova address more than once. No contacts import, no new connection — only data Nova already holds.
- Categories with no real source — business, vehicles, goals, projects, documents — stay manual-only. Nova won't invent suggestions where it has nothing to go on, and the Add button stays exactly where it was on every category.
- Calmer coming-soon
Nova's own email address no longer looks like something is broken
- Forwarding to a private Nova address isn't live yet. That note used to appear as an amber warning on your home screen; it now reads as a quiet 'coming soon', in the same tone as integrations we haven't shipped.
- It has also moved off Mission Control while it's pending — your home screen shouldn't show an alert for something you can't act on. You'll find it on Connections, and it returns to the home screen the moment forwarding works end-to-end.
- One clear control
Your agents page no longer offers two ways to pause the same agent
- With a single agent, the select-and-pause bar above the list did exactly what the button on the agent row already did. The bar now only appears once you have two or more agents, and its actions only appear once you've actually selected something — matching how the inbox already behaves.
- The pause, edit and remove buttons on each agent row stay where they were, and are now named properly for screen readers.
- Every page inside Nova now shares the same page margins and vertical rhythm, so no screen feels less finished than another.
- Ask Nova, tidied
Opening an older conversation now clearly loads it
- Picking a past chat from history used to leave the column blank while it loaded, which looked like nothing had happened. It now says it's loading and shows the thread arriving.
- A half-sent message or an error from one conversation no longer appears inside the next one you open.
- Your AI-actions count and the limit shown next to it are now read from the same place that enforces the limit, so the two can't disagree — including for accounts holding more than one plan record.
- When something is genuinely outside what Nova can do — live weather, share prices, browsing a site — it now says so the same short way every time, and offers the nearest thing it can actually do.
- WhatsApp, clearer
Turning on WhatsApp messages is now part of connecting, not something to find later
- Connecting WhatsApp and allowing Nova to message you are still two separate decisions — but the second one is now asked right after the first, instead of sitting at the bottom of the connections page.
- If WhatsApp is connected and messaging is still off, Nova says so on Mission Control and on Connections, rather than staying quiet while nothing arrives.
- The permission itself is unchanged: never pre-ticked, and you can withdraw it at any time.
- Calmer under outage
When a connected service goes down, Nova waits instead of failing over and over
- If our messaging provider stops responding, Nova pauses attempts for a few minutes rather than retrying on every check. Nothing is lost — scheduled items stay queued and go out once the service is back.
- The pause is stated plainly on your connections page instead of showing a generic error.
- Fewer repeats
Nova offers to take over the bits you keep doing yourself
- After you file the same kind of card away five times in a row, Nova asks once whether it should do that filing for you. Say no and it stays quiet about that pattern for a month.
- The offer only ever covers filing informational cards. Anything that sends, pays or books still waits for you.
- Scheduled agents that call an outside service now do so once per run, even when a run has to be retried.
- Money accuracy
An amount on a card is the amount on the document
- Nova now has to quote the total exactly as it is printed, and those characters are checked against the number before any Money card shows a figure.
- If the printed total can't be verified, the card says 'amount unclear — check the original' instead of showing a number Nova isn't sure of.
- Drafting prompts now state plainly that saying there isn't enough information is the right answer when the evidence is thin.
- Memory safety
Nova asks before keeping a guess
- Anything Nova infers rather than hears you say now waits for your yes before it is remembered — including small, everyday guesses, not only sensitive ones.
- A low-confidence reading is treated as speculation and asks first.
- Every entry now says how Nova came by it: you said this, Nova saw this happen, or Nova's guess.
- Design System Standards
Nova's design system, verified and written down
- Added docs/DESIGN_SYSTEM_STANDARDS.md recording the verified state of Nova's components, buttons and inputs, empty/loading/error/success states, motion rules, design tokens, accessibility and navigation.
- Confirmed Nova is card and list based by design, so a data-table system stays unbuilt; full component documentation applies to new components rather than as a backfill.
- Recorded that Nova is dark-only today and that whether to add a light mode is still an open decision.
- Engineering Standards
Documented engineering hygiene standards
- Added docs/ENGINEERING_STANDARDS.md covering TypeScript rules, file naming, component and error-handling standards, logging, a per-feature security checklist, a code review checklist, database and configuration rules.
- Declined a proposed repository restructuring as premature for current scale: Nova stays one application rather than a monorepo, and no new tooling infrastructure was adopted.
- Linked the standards from docs/NOVA.md, which remains the single source of truth for Nova's stack.
- Manifesto
The Nova Manifesto is now in the repo
- Added docs/MANIFESTO.md with the founder's manifesto, verbatim, plus a boundary note at the top.
- The manifesto register is intentionally excluded from Nova's public voice; the copy-lint rules and docs/PLAYBOOK.md voice guidance still govern marketing copy and product UI.
- Linked the manifesto from docs/NOVA.md as an internal-only founding document, distinct from the other founding documents that do inform product voice.
- Ten-Year Vision
Nova's ten-year vision is now in the repo
- Added docs/TEN_YEAR_VISION.md with the founder's ten-year vision statement, verbatim.
- The vision holds the same full-visibility-and-control line as docs/VISION.md and docs/AI_PHILOSOPHY.md: users rely on Nova to remember, organize, plan, research, coordinate, automate, learn and collaborate, while staying in charge.
- Linked the ten-year vision from docs/NOVA.md alongside the mission, vision, values, product philosophy, design philosophy, engineering philosophy, AI philosophy, decision framework, brand principles, naming standards, product vocabulary and non-negotiables.
- Non-Negotiables
Nova's non-negotiables are now in the repo
- Added docs/NON_NEGOTIABLES.md with the founder's non-negotiable principles, verbatim, plus a clarifying line that executive approval currently means the founder directly.
- The principles are: User trust, Privacy, Security, Accessibility, Performance, Reliability, Documentation, Testing, Observability, Explainability, Human control, Platform integrity.
- Linked the non-negotiables from docs/NOVA.md alongside the mission, vision, values, product philosophy, design philosophy, engineering philosophy, AI philosophy, decision framework, brand principles, naming standards and product vocabulary.
- Product Vocabulary
One name per thing, written down
- Added docs/PRODUCT_VOCABULARY.md recording Nova's real shipped terms: Mission Control, Card, Approve/Snooze/Dismiss, Approve for later, Triage categories, Daily briefing, Memory, Ask Nova, Connect, Trust policy, What Nova learned, Preference.
- Recorded the terms Nova deliberately avoids in user-facing copy, including workspace, automation, agent, integration, timeline and task.
- The document stays synchronized with the copy lint; where they disagree, the lint wins.
- Naming Standards
Nova's naming standards are now in the repo
- Added docs/NAMING_STANDARDS.md with the founder's naming standards, verbatim.
- Names should be clear, short, specific and consistent; prefer nouns for capabilities like Memory, Knowledge, Automation, Identity, Search, Planner and Actions.
- Linked the full naming standards from docs/NOVA.md alongside the mission, vision, values, product, design, engineering, AI philosophy, decision framework and brand principles statements.
- This completes the founding-documents set: Mission, Vision, Values, Product Philosophy, Design Philosophy, Engineering Philosophy, AI Philosophy, Decision Framework, Brand Principles and Naming Standards.
- Brand Principles
Nova's brand principles are now in the repo
- Added docs/BRAND_PRINCIPLES.md with the founder's brand principles, verbatim.
- The principles reinforce Nova's existing voice: calm, professional, trustworthy, never loud or gimmicky.
- Linked the full brand principles from docs/NOVA.md alongside the mission, vision, values, product, design, engineering, AI philosophy and decision framework statements.
- This completes the founding-documents set: Mission, Vision, Values, Product Philosophy, Design Philosophy, Engineering Philosophy, AI Philosophy, Decision Framework and Brand Principles.
- Decision Framework
Nova's decision framework is now in the repo
- Added docs/DECISION_FRAMEWORK.md with the founder's 10 decision-forcing questions, verbatim.
- Added a grounding footnote so questions 5 and 6 (strengthen the platform / scale globally) are read through docs/PLAYBOOK.md's current-stage discipline, not as a license to over-build for a pre-revenue product.
- Linked the full decision framework from docs/NOVA.md alongside the mission, vision, values, product, design, engineering, AI philosophy and brand principles statements.
- Leadership Principles
Nova's leadership principles are now in the repo
- Added docs/LEADERSHIP_PRINCIPLES.md with the founder's leadership principles, verbatim, plus a framing header noting it is written for the team Nova will eventually have.
- Most principles already apply to the founder's work today; the remainder become active when hiring starts.
- Linked the full leadership principles from docs/NOVA.md in a forward-looking group separate from the currently-active founding documents.
- AI Philosophy
Nova's AI philosophy is now in the repo
- Added docs/AI_PHILOSOPHY.md with the founder's AI philosophy, with one correction for consistency with CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md.
- The 'Provider Independent' principle now points to the verified single-wrapper seam and the Bible chapters that record why full model-routing infrastructure was deferred.
- Linked the full AI philosophy from docs/NOVA.md alongside the mission, vision, values, product, design and engineering philosophy statements.
- Engineering Philosophy
Nova's engineering philosophy is now in the repo
- Added docs/ENGINEERING_PHILOSOPHY.md with the founder's engineering philosophy, verbatim.
- Linked the full engineering philosophy from docs/NOVA.md alongside the mission, vision, values, product philosophy and design philosophy statements.
- This completes the founding-documents set: Mission, Vision, Values, Product Philosophy, Design Philosophy and Engineering Philosophy.
- Design Philosophy
Nova's design philosophy is now in the repo
- Added docs/DESIGN_PHILOSOPHY.md with the founder's design philosophy, verbatim.
- Linked the full design philosophy from docs/NOVA.md alongside the mission, vision, values and product philosophy statements.
- This completes the founding-documents set: Mission, Vision, Values, Product Philosophy and Design Philosophy.
- Product Philosophy
Nova's product philosophy is now in the repo
- Added docs/PRODUCT_PHILOSOPHY.md with the founder's product philosophy, verbatim.
- Linked the full product philosophy from docs/NOVA.md alongside the mission, vision and values statements.
- The document restates the pattern already validated across the Bible review: fewer features executed well, and enterprise-scale deferrals held.
- Values
Nova's core values are now in the repo
- Added docs/VALUES.md with the founder's core values, verbatim.
- Linked the full values from docs/NOVA.md alongside the mission and vision statements.
- This completes the founding-documents set: Mission, Vision, Values and Principles.
- Vision
Nova's vision statement is now in the repo
- Added docs/VISION.md with the founder's vision statement, verbatim.
- Linked the full vision from docs/NOVA.md alongside the mission statement.
- The vision holds the approval-first line: every automation remains transparent and every decision preserves human agency.
- Mission
Nova's mission statement is now in the repo
- Added docs/MISSION.md with the founder's mission statement, verbatim.
- Linked the full mission from docs/NOVA.md so the corrected architecture doc points to the enduring why behind Nova.
- Docs
Documented Nova's actual architecture and archived the design process
- Wrote down what Nova is actually built on, correcting an earlier description that named tools Nova doesn't use.
- Archived the 20-chapter design bible that shaped Nova, with a plain record of what was built from it and what was deliberately left for later.
- Wrote the working rules any AI helping build Nova has to follow, so future work extends what exists instead of reinventing it.
- Added those working rules alongside Nova's existing safety contract, so the approval rules and the conduct rules live in one place.
- Evenings
Nova now closes the day, not just opens it
- After 6pm, Mission Control shows a short wrap-up: what you approved today and what's still waiting on you.
- It's one honest line built from what actually happened — no AI call, no email, and nothing at all on a day with no activity.
- Behind the scenes Nova now records a simple 'used today' signal per account so we can see whether people come back — no cookies, no trackers, just your signed-in account.
- Status
One line for whether everything is fine
- The internal status page now opens with a single word — Operational, Needs attention, or Degraded — instead of making someone read fourteen lights.
- The worst light wins: if anything is failing, the top line says so.
- Anything not yet measured is shown as not measured, never counted as healthy.
- This is an internal operations screen — nothing about it changes what Nova does with your data.
- Reliability
Nova now counts its own failures
- Every AI call Nova makes records how it ended — worked, failed, or timed out — so a bad patch shows up as a number instead of a hunch.
- A call that fails no longer counts against your daily AI allowance, and it no longer disappears from the record either.
- If Nova can't reach its model, you still get the honest message you always did: nothing was sent, nothing was lost, try again shortly.
- This is internal plumbing — nothing about your data, your approvals, or what Nova is allowed to do has changed.
- Privacy
Everything Nova holds, on one page
- Privacy & data is now a single page: what Nova remembers, what it's connected to, your export, and account deletion — no hunting through submenus.
- Each section opens with a plain sentence rather than a setting name: how many things Nova remembers, and exactly which accounts are connected right now.
- Deleting your account is linked from the same page as everything else, not hidden at the bottom of a different screen.
- Nothing new is collected and nothing changed about how your data is handled — this is the same controls you already had, gathered in one place.
- Search
Find anything in Nova in one keystroke
- Press ⌘K (or Ctrl+K) anywhere in the app — or tap the search icon in the phone header — to search your own cards and memory entries, and jump to any screen.
- Results are yours only: the search runs against your own rows, scoped by the same database rules that protect the rest of your account.
- Arrow keys and enter work throughout; on a phone every result is a full-size tap target.
- One status element now speaks for Nova everywhere — 'Nova is thinking', 'Preparing your briefing', 'Waiting for your approval' — instead of a different phrase on every screen.
- Reliability
Nova tells you when a connection goes quiet
- Connections page now shows when a source has stopped working — 'This connection needs your attention' — instead of leaving a green tick on a mailbox Nova can no longer read.
- One tap reconnects it, and repairing a connection you already have never counts against your plan’s account limit.
- Unresolved invoice and renewal cards get one gentle check-in after a week: 'still relevant?' Nothing is sent or paid — approve it or dismiss it.
- Nova asks about the same money card twice at most, then goes quiet for good.
- Approvals
One place for everything waiting on your word
- New Approval centre: what’s waiting on you, what you approved in the last 7 days, and what you dismissed or snoozed — all in one screen, on your phone.
- Approved-but-not-yet-due items now show when they’re due to go out, so nothing sits in the dark.
- New in Settings: choose whether Nova files FYI and Noise away without asking. Everything else keeps asking.
- Needs you, Waiting and Money can never be auto-filed — anything that could send, pay or book always waits for your approval. That’s locked in the database, not a setting.
- Sources & freshness
Nova now says where it got that from
- In Ask Nova, every personal fact comes with where it came from — “From the invoice you forwarded on Tuesday…”, “Based on what you told me about your work hours…”. No unsourced claims about your own life.
- If Nova has two versions of the same thing — two amounts on one invoice, two dates for one event — it shows both, says where each came from, and asks which is right instead of quietly picking one.
- Snap a contract, subscription, licence, insurance policy or domain invoice and Nova reads the renewal or expiry date off it, the same way it already reads invoices. You confirm before anything is saved.
- Cards that have been sitting for a while now say so — “Caught 6 days ago — still relevant?” — instead of looking as fresh as this morning’s.
- Explanations
Every card now explains itself in one honest sentence
- Tap the info button on a card and the first line says it plainly: what Nova noticed, where it came from, and how sure Nova is.
- Cards Nova isn’t sure about now say so on the card itself — “Nova’s not fully sure about this one — check the details.” No more guessing which drafts to trust.
- When today’s briefing can’t be prepared, Nova says why and offers to try again — instead of showing an empty page as if nothing happened.
- Ask Nova now checks its own answer before replying, and tells you straight when it can’t fully answer rather than filling the gap with confidence.
- Explanations always describe noticing and drafting — never “Nova moved it” or “Nova sent it”. The copy checker now fails the build on that wording.
- Memory
Nova now asks before remembering something personal
- When Nova picks up a name, a business detail or a contact number on its own, it asks first — one line, Yes or No. Say no and it’s gone. Nothing unconfirmed is ever used in an answer.
- Small, low-stakes observations still save quietly. The ask only happens where it earns your trust, not on every scrap.
- Pin the facts that matter and they surface first — in Memory and in “What Nova has learned”.
- Memory is now grouped the way you think: preferences, communication style, people, business, recurring topics.
- Ask Nova “why do you remember this?” and it answers with the real source, confidence and the date it learned — or admits it doesn’t know.
- Sign-in trust
Nova stopped hiding why sign-in failed
- Every sign-in error now says what actually happened — wrong password, unconfirmed email, expired link, no internet, session timed out — and gives you one clear next step. No more “something went wrong”.
- New in Settings: “Where you’re signed in”. Every device with an active Nova session, when it was last active, and a Sign out button for each — plus Sign out everywhere.
- Sign in from a device Nova hasn’t seen before and a security notice is prepared with the device and time, and how to reach a founder if it wasn’t you.
- Deleting your account now offers the export first — one tap, everything Nova stored, before anything is erased.
- Design DNA
Nova stopped saying “Loading…”
- Every waiting state now says what Nova is actually doing — “Reading your forwards…”, “Checking your plan…”, “Gathering this week’s review…” — instead of a bare spinner.
- When a page fails, the message says what happened, that nothing was lost, and what Nova is doing about it — never a stack trace, never your fault.
- Settings now has its own Memory section: what Nova remembers, and what Nova did and when.
- Language check: Nova prepares and drafts — it doesn’t “handle” anything for you. The copy checker now fails the build if that wording creeps back.
- Same obsidian, graphite and teal — not a single colour moved.
- Mission Control
Your Nova home is now Mission Control
- The signed-in home screen is called Mission Control everywhere — nav, page title, command palette and the help copy that referred to it.
- A quiet status line appears only when Nova is genuinely busy in the background (checking your forwards, preparing tomorrow’s briefing). If nothing is running, nothing is shown — no decorative thinking animation.
- One-tap actions sit under the greeting: Ask Nova, add a card, review your inbox, open today’s brief. Only things Nova can actually do.
- The greeting no longer implies Nova did anything on your behalf. It says what is ready for your approval, plus the small, true background work — nothing was sent.
- Memory now says plainly what Nova remembers: people, vehicles, businesses, suppliers, customers, subscriptions, goals, documents and preferences — all editable, deletable and exportable.
- Plain language
Nova stopped calling itself an assistant
- The public site no longer describes Nova as an AI assistant anywhere — it describes what stops happening to your day instead. The copy checker now fails the build if the phrase comes back.
- The homepage runs as one arc: the problem, the hope, the demonstration, the trust, the proof, the way in.
- Four real days — a freelancer chasing an invoice, an owner between sites, an evening catch-up, a morning brief — each with the actual Nova screen for that moment.
- Every one of those stories ends the same way: Nova prepared it, you tapped approve. Nothing books, sends or moves on its own.
- “You stay in control” now lists only things you can do today: approve or decline, reply on WhatsApp, see what Nova remembers, export it, delete it, disconnect an account.
- Same obsidian and teal — the calm came from space and type, not a new palette.
- Homepage order
The homepage now tells the story in one straight line
- Nine sections, one order: the opening, the phone that moves, the problems that disappear, real days, how it works, trust, what it connects to, price, and one last way in.
- New: an honest list of what Nova connects to today — forwarding, .ics calendars, documents and notes on the free tier; Gmail, Outlook, iCloud, IMAP, Google and Outlook calendars and WhatsApp on Plus; LinkedIn, Instagram, Messenger and Telegram on Business. Nothing listed that you can't connect right now.
- “How Nova works” shows three states and links to the full walkthrough instead of pasting all five chapters onto the homepage.
- The photography band moved to where it belongs — after the problems, before the mechanics — rather than sitting after the price.
- On a phone the whole page is still 12.9 screens: adding a section cost 2%, not a rebuild of the scroll.
- Fewer buttons
Every control had to justify itself
- Cards now have one button that matters. Approve stands alone; edit, snooze, dismiss and approve-for-later sit quietly underneath instead of competing with it.
- “Snooze” is now “remind me later”, so it can't be confused with “approve for later”, which schedules something you've already approved.
- One way in, said one way: every “start free” button across the site now uses the same words.
- Removed a second help button that sat in the same corner as the first, two duplicate rows in Settings, and a duplicate capture button on your home screen.
- Plainer words: “Guardrails & Trust” is now “Safety”, and your data page leads with what it does rather than which law it satisfies.
- What did not change, deliberately: nothing sends, books or pays without your tap. Making approval automatic would have been the easiest cut on the list, and it is the one thing Nova will not do.
- Homepage
Written as problems, not features.
- The product bands on the homepage now start with the problem in your words — “I forget renewals until the bill hits” — and end with what actually happened, not what the software can do.
- Every outcome shown is something Nova really does today: a renewal caught early, a follow-up drafted, forwards sorted into Needs you / Waiting / Noise, a polite no written for you. Each one still waited for your tap.
- Homepage
The phone on the homepage is alive.
- Scroll past the opening screen and the phone starts working: a notification arrives, the Dynamic Island announces the catch, the card appears already written, the widget counts today, and the approval lands. Five real screens, in the order they happen.
- It moves in whole steps, not with the scrollbar — no hijacked scrolling, and it stays light on a cheap phone. Reduced-motion settings turn it into instant cuts, and Data Saver shows one clean static screen with the steps written out.
- Homepage
One screen. One idea.
- The homepage now opens on a single, uncluttered screen — what Nova is, one line about how it works, and one way in. Nothing else competes for that first moment.
- New opening line: Nova is not another chatbot, it is an operating system for your life — running across your email, calendar and renewals rather than waiting to be asked.
- Reliability · Safety
Nova now notices when you haven't noticed.
- Nova tracks whether you actually opened a card, not just whether it sent one. If something urgent goes unseen and its deadline is closing in, Nova chases you — 12 hours for anything due tomorrow, 24 hours otherwise.
- New on every card: “This wasn’t right.” Tell Nova what it got wrong — wrong amount, wrong person, wrong tone, wrong timing — and it deprioritises that kind of catch. If it already went out, Nova says so plainly rather than pretending it can take it back.
- WhatsApp messages now require a separate, explicit agreement, kept with a date and a version. Connecting an account is no longer treated as permission to message you, and withdrawing stops messages immediately.
- An app-wide emergency brake on AI drafting, in case of runaway usage. If it engages, nothing is sent and nothing is charged — and only a human can switch it back on.
- Design · Photography
Real days on the homepage.
- A new photography band shows five different people in five different moments — coffee before work, a kitchen table, a shop counter, a bakkie between jobs, home after hours.
- Full-strength images, one horizontal swipe on a phone, lazy-loaded so they never slow the first screen.
- Design · Ambient
A little more of real life behind the product.
- Three homepage sections now sit on a soft photographic background — a cafe table, a commute, a shop counter — kept dark and low-contrast so the product screens stay the thing you read.
- The photos are decorative only: lazy-loaded, never in the first paint, and hidden entirely if your phone or browser asks for reduced data.
- Campaign · Learning
It learns you.
- A second way of saying what Nova is: every edit teaches it your tone, every snooze and dismissal reshapes tomorrow morning's list.
- The homepage now shows the real “What Nova has learned” panel, with the trust line next to it — read it, export it, delete any of it in Memory.
- The “no prompt box” post gained a section on why the two ideas are one idea: Nova can prompt you because it learned you.
- Campaign
You prompt them. Nova prompts you.
- A clearer way of saying what makes Nova different: other AI waits for the right question, Nova arrives with it already answered and one thing to approve.
- The homepage comparison, the hero line and the compare page now all say it the same way.
- New post: why Nova's home screen has no prompt box — including the honest trade-offs.
- Press kit gained a campaign-lines section with downloadable share cards.
- Final check
A full sweep of every page, and the last rough edges smoothed
- Every public page was walked on a phone. The one remaining error — a pricing number that flickered as the page loaded — is fixed.
- The changelog no longer scrolls forever on a phone: recent releases show first, and “show earlier updates” holds the rest.
- Bigger tap targets on the help filters, the live demo, and the walkthrough chapter dots.
- A dated scorecard of the whole product now lives with the project docs, including an honest list of what still needs real users or owner action.
- One night in five screens
The walkthrough is now a proper guided tour
- The tour walks one night in five screens — the night shift, the catch, the draft, your tap, and the record — in about ninety seconds.
- Every screen is the real product in a phone frame, clearly labelled as an example preview.
- You can see “approve for later” in the tour: approve now, or pick tomorrow morning, Monday, or a time you choose.
- It scrolls at your pace — nothing moves on its own, and with reduced motion on it is a plain stacked page.
- The tour ends where everything else does: five questions to tune Nova to you.
- Plain words in the app
Clearer settings, an honest Ask Nova, and permissions in plain English
- Ask Nova now tells you how many AI replies you have left today before you run out — and if you do run out, Nova pauses until tomorrow with nothing charged.
- Ask Nova says plainly that your chats are saved to your account, and where to delete them.
- Every connection now lists exactly what Nova reads — sender, subject, amounts, dates — and exactly what it will never do, instead of vague wording.
- Trust levels are honest: “approve once for this type” only changes email drafts today, and the app now says so instead of implying more.
- Bigger, easier tap targets across Memory, Permissions and Ask on phones.
- Find your country, choose your start
Type your country, and pick how you want to begin
- Tap the flag and search all 267 countries and territories. Nova bills in your local currency where we have it, and says plainly when it does not — for example “Nigeria — billed in US$ for now”. No invented local pricing.
- The menu now carries the pages that were buried in the footer: how it works, the live no-signup demo, what Nova catches, what Nova solves, comparisons, the blog and about.
- Tapping “Start free” now asks how you want to start — set me up, show me how it works, or let me try it. Pick “set me up” once and Nova remembers, and takes you straight there next time.
- One clear path
A red “backend unreachable” warning is gone, and every page now points the same way
- Fixed: the setup page could show a red “Backend unreachable” warning while everything was in fact working. The warning was reading a dependency self-check that had three faulty probes in it — nothing was ever down.
- System status readouts no longer appear on public pages at all. They live on the status page and the admin view, where they belong. If something genuinely fails while you are setting up, Nova says so in plain words and keeps your answers.
- Your setup answers now survive signing in, a reload, or a hiccup — you will not be asked the five questions twice.
- Every page now ends by pointing at the same next step, so you are never left at the bottom of a page wondering where to go.
- The old /start page folded into /setup. One setup, one path.
- Show the product
The site now shows Nova working, instead of showing people holding phones
- The photo-heavy bands on the homepage were replaced with real product moments — a WhatsApp approval, an invoice card, the morning briefing and the triage chips — each labelled as an example preview.
- “How Nova works” was rebuilt around three product screens: connect, catch, approve. On a phone it swipes sideways instead of hijacking your scroll, and the no-signup demo now sits right underneath it.
- Every photograph on the site was audited: no image appears on two pages any more, and the few that remain are there because they earn it.
- Fixed: a line under the headline could disappear if you tapped the hero and then scrolled. It stays put now, and a test guards it.
- The phone menu was redesigned as a proper sheet — solid surface, grouped rows with a line of description each, an aligned close button and the free-trial button pinned at the bottom.
- Approve for later
Approve now, let Nova act at the right moment
- Every card can now be approved for later: pick tomorrow morning, Monday, the next business day, or any time you like, and Nova carries it out then — not now.
- The next-business-day option knows the South African public holiday calendar, so a Monday holiday quietly becomes Tuesday, and it tells you why.
- A scheduled card says exactly when it will run and can be cancelled right up to that moment. Nothing has been sent until it runs.
- Your approval is recorded the second you give it, and the run is logged when it happens — so the audit trail shows both.
- Pricing fix: visitors in South Africa were occasionally shown dollar pricing when the network looked American. Your phone’s own time zone now wins, so rands stay rands.
- Three seconds
You can now tell what Nova is in one glance
- The homepage now opens by saying plainly what Nova is — your AI assistant for email, calendar and deadlines — above the headline.
- The same one-line description now appears everywhere a stranger first meets Nova: search results, link previews, the no-signup demo and the sign-in page.
- No sections were added and nothing else moved, so the phone version stays as short as it was.
- Phone-first
The site now reads like it was designed for your phone first — because it was
- The homepage went from roughly thirty screens of scrolling on a phone to under nine. Nothing was removed — the detail now sits behind one designed tap instead of eighteen stacked sections.
- Pricing is compact by default on a phone: three features per plan, with the full list one tap away, and the calculators and policy detail collapsed until you want them.
- Headlines and section spacing were rebuilt for a phone screen, so a five-word line is two lines — not four screens.
- Switching guides and use-case pages got the same treatment: hero, the point, then the detail on request.
- Everything stays readable for search engines and screen readers, and every collapsed section announces whether it is open.
- Just CC Nova
CC Nova on a thread, and try the whole thing before signing up
- Forwarding grew up: Nova now matches its address on To, Cc, the SMTP envelope and Delivered-To, so CC'ing Nova on a live thread works exactly like forwarding. Verified end to end against the real ingest path.
- Your private Nova address is now one tap away on Home, with copy-to-clipboard and an add-to-contacts download, so “Nova” autocompletes in your mail app.
- New at /try: an interactive demo of the triaged inbox with example items you can open, read the reasoning on, and approve. No signup, and nothing leaves the page — the confirm sheet says so.
- “Tell the founder” is now in your profile. It’s a message box, not a chat: early access, a real person reads every one, and there is no auto-reply.
- Any future announcement banner must carry an expiry date and disappears on its own past it — enforced by a test, so a stale promo cannot happen.
- Local edge
South African public holidays, and honest guides for switching
- Nova now knows the South African public holiday calendar for 2026 and 2027, including the rule that a Sunday holiday is taken on the Monday. A renewal or deadline that lands on — or straight after — a public holiday gets a plain note: offices and banks are closed, handle it by the working day before.
- Your morning briefing mentions an upcoming public holiday once, two days ahead. No theming, no confetti — just the heads-up.
- New migration guides at /switch for anyone coming from Motion, Reclaim, Martin, Lindy or Fyxer: what each product genuinely does well, what people bump into, and the manual ten-minute path across. Nova has no data importer, and every guide says so in the first line.
- Hardened shell
The app shell itself is now locked down and self-reporting
- Every page and API response carries a full set of browser security rules: the site can't be framed by anyone else, files can't be mis-read as scripts, and camera, microphone, location and a long list of sensors are switched off at the door. Snapping a document still works — it hands off to your phone's own camera app.
- A second, stricter rule set now runs in listen-only mode alongside the live one, so we can see exactly what tightening it further would break before we turn it on.
- If something breaks in your browser — a button that does nothing on your particular phone — Nova now tells us, with just the message and the page. No stack traces, no query strings, no identity, capped at five reports per visit.
- Browser and server problems sit side by side in one place internally, with a filter between them.
- First minute
Nova now catches something real before it asks for anything
- Setup is four screens instead of seven: the promise, one thing you're worried about forgetting, where Nova should look, and installing it on your phone.
- The second screen turns one real worry — a renewal, a deadline, someone you owe a reply — into a real card with its category, on the free plan, with nothing connected and nothing granted.
- Every connect option now says why it helps and exactly what Nova will catch from it, with the free options first. That line follows the connect buttons everywhere else in Nova too.
- Everything except the opening screen can be skipped, and skipping still lands you on a Home that has something to do.
- Calmer surfaces
A calmer, clearer look where controls float and content leads
- Frosted glass is now reserved for the things that float above the page — the menu bar, sheets, toasts and the help tab. Cards, prices, answers and inbox rows sit clean and solid, so what matters reads first.
- The menu bar settles gently into place when it returns, and the phone tab bar tucks away as you scroll down and expands as you scroll back up.
- Buttons pick up a soft highlight when you press them; corners inside cards now line up with the corners around them.
- Fewer blurred surfaces means less work for cheap phones, and the reduced-transparency and data-saver settings have even less to strip out.
- Consistency audit
Every claim on the site re-checked against what the product does
- Fixed the ROI calculator: on some phones the rand amounts flickered as the page loaded, because the server and the browser grouped thousands differently. All prices now format identically everywhere.
- Corrected the plan comparison answer in Straight answers — Personal uses free sources (forwarding, .ics calendar, capture); direct Gmail, Outlook, calendar and WhatsApp connections start on Plus.
- Annual billing is described honestly: built, switched off, and announced here the day it goes live.
- All 70 public pages were visited on a 390px phone: every one loads, has a single heading and clean structured data, with no errors in the console.
- Triage everywhere
Sorting is now visible from the first page to the first card
- The home page shows the five categories Nova sorts into — Needs you, Waiting, Money, FYI, Noise — marked as an example preview.
- Onboarding says plainly that anything you forward gets triaged automatically, so your first card arrives with its category already on it.
- New help articles on how triage works and how to capture an invoice or quote, plus three straight answers about correcting a category.
- Use cases
Seven pages for the seven things people actually ask Nova to fix
- New /solve section: inbox overload, renewal creep, invoice chasing, dropped follow-ups, deadline anxiety, family and school admin, and document chaos — each with the three concrete steps Nova takes, what plan it needs, and what it can't do yet.
- Every page carries its own FAQ structured data and social preview, and links back to pricing, straight answers and the matching note.
- New note: 'The five inbox problems an AI chief-of-staff actually fixes'.
- Document intelligence
Nova now reads the money off your invoices — and admits what it can't see
- Snap a document: upload or photograph an invoice, quote or statement in the inbox and Nova pulls out the vendor, amount, due date and reference, then shows you the numbers to confirm before anything is saved. Nothing is ever paid or sent — it only creates a Money card.
- Honest about the gap: forwarded email currently reaches Nova as text only, so attachments never arrive. When an email mentions one ('see attached invoice'), Nova says so plainly and gives you an 'Add the amount' button instead of pretending it read the file.
- Low-confidence reads are flagged, and if Nova can't read the document at all you can type the numbers in yourself. Uploaded files stay private to your account.
- Nova Triage
Every item Nova catches now arrives sorted
- Everything Nova ingests gets one category: Needs you, Waiting, Money, FYI or Noise. Filter chips with live counts sit at the top of the inbox, and Needs you and Money rise first by default.
- Category informs the order — it never overrides what Nova has learned about you. A Money card you always dismiss still sinks below everything else.
- Got it wrong? Tap the category chip and pick the right one. The correction is recorded and feeds back into how Nova ranks your cards.
- Triage runs on forwarded email, so it works on the free tier — no connected account required. Classification reuses the existing single AI call per email, with a deterministic fallback when AI is unavailable.
- Smart sticky header
The menu now follows you down the page
- The public header is fixed from first paint. Scroll down past the hero and it slides away (200ms, calm ease) so you get the full screen to read; flick up even slightly and it returns instantly with Product, Pricing, Trust, Sign in and the mobile menu button in reach — no more scrolling back to the top.
- Once you're off the top of the page the header wears the glass treatment (translucent obsidian, hairline bottom border); at the very top it's transparent again. Its height is reserved in the layout, so nothing shifts as it hides and returns. Reduced-motion visitors get instant show/hide with no slide.
- Fixed a related bug: the mobile menu panel rendered inside the header, whose backdrop blur made it the containing block — the panel collapsed to a 1px sliver on some states. It's now anchored to the viewport and fills the screen properly.
- FAQ, Help and Status pages had no header at all — they now share the same one as every other public page, so the menu is available there too.
- Toasts now clear the header by 80px, and the install banner stays bottom-anchored, so the returning header never collides with either.
- Hero rotation
The homepage hero now breathes — one rotating line, never the promise
- The headline stays fixed. A single short line under it now rotates through six honest one-liners every 8 seconds with a calm crossfade — no slide, no bounce, no full-headline swap mid-read.
- Rotation freezes the moment you hover, touch, or focus anywhere in the hero, so the text never changes under a reading eye or a finger about to tap. With reduced-motion enabled, one static line shows and nothing rotates.
- The starting line rotates per visit, and returning visitors open on a warmer line ('Wake up already ahead.'). The line's height is reserved, so nothing below it shifts — verified at 390px.
- First-visit calm
Consent popup removed, one overlay at a time, install prompt earns its place
- Consent banner removed. Audit: it gated only the optional GA4/PostHog sinks (no keys are configured) — Nova's funnel analytics are first-party and cookieless, posting anonymous pageview beacons to /api/public/events with no cookies, no cross-site trackers and no profiling identifiers. Nothing consent-requiring remains, so the blocking popup is gone; disclosure lives in /privacy plus a one-line footer note ('Cookieless, first-party analytics · Privacy').
- New overlay-stage coordinator (src/lib/overlay-stage.ts): at most ONE proactive prompt can be visible on the public site. Stage 0 is a clean page — nothing for the first ten seconds and until the first meaningful scroll. Stage 1 reveals the floating help tab only after both 15 seconds and 30% scroll, entering with a plain fade. A dismissed prompt yields its slot only in the next session.
- The 'Add Nova to your home screen' pill no longer appears to first-time anonymous visitors on the marketing site at all. It shows only to returning visitors (2nd+ session), docked bottom-right without overlapping the help tab, and dismissal is permanent. Installing is still offered where it makes sense: the post-signup onboarding install step.
- Verified at 390px with a fresh profile: homepage loads clean, stays clean past ten seconds, and after scrolling only the help tab appears — no install banner anywhere pre-signup.
- Adversarial hardening pass
Prompt-injection tests, untrusted-sender labels, offline fallback
- Forwarding-ingest audit: per-user forwarding addresses are already random 16-char tokens (~80 bits of entropy) behind an INBOUND_EMAIL_SECRET header — not guessable — and ingest only creates pending proposals (never active cards). Belt-and-braces: the forwarded inbox now labels any email whose sender doesn't match the user's account address with a visible 'Untrusted sender — double-check before approving' caution.
- Prompt-assembly test suite: the AI extraction prompt is now built by a single shared function (buildInboundExtractionPrompt) and covered by unit tests that pass hostile content through subject, from-name, from-email, and body. The tests assert that (a) the system-instruction section is byte-identical regardless of body, (b) hostile text lands only inside the <UNTRUSTED_EMAIL> fence, and (c) embedded closing tags are neutralised so no email can break out.
- Approve-moment scrutiny: NovaCard now accepts a `consequence` prop that renders inline above the footer on critical/attention/opportunity cards — 'If you approve · <what will happen>' — so the concrete consequence is visible at the approve action, never buried in a dialog. The existing 'AI-drafted · review before approving' hint stays as the educational nudge on drafted cards.
- Offline behaviour: the service worker now warms /offline.html as a branded fallback (obsidian card, 'You're offline — Nova will catch up' plus a Try again button). Any navigation with no network and no cached copy renders this instead of Response.error(). Cache version bumped to nova-v2 so returning devices refresh cleanly.
- Findings verified as already correct (no change needed): clickwrap consent on /auth already links to Terms and Privacy on both sign-in and sign-up; self-serve account deletion in Settings → Account already wipes every user table and revokes Nango/Unipile tokens with a DELETE confirmation; first-party cookieless pageview + funnel analytics are already wired into analytics_events via /api/public/events; and tests/security/rls.test.ts already sweeps cross-user isolation on card_events, user_memory, user_integrations, subscriptions, and user_opportunities.
- Security + consistency pass
Cron hooks locked down, install pill unblocked, one support address
- Cron auth: the two hooks added late in the roadmap — /api/public/hooks/weekly-digest and /api/public/hooks/owner-ops-alert — now verify Authorization: Bearer <CRON_SECRET> and return 401 without it, matching agents-tick. Every other hook (nightly-briefings, retention-purge, uptime-check, watcher-due, whatsapp-health, paddle-drift, backup-snapshot) already had the same guard; inbound-email uses its own signature. The cron.schedule SQL comments in both new hooks now include the Authorization header explicitly.
- PWA install pill no longer covers hero CTAs: it stays hidden until the user has scrolled past the hero (or eight seconds of idle), docks to the bottom-right on desktop instead of centre, and remembers dismissal in localStorage (not just this tab).
- Every contact surface (floating support tab, /support, /press, /terms, /privacy, security.txt, ownership one-pager, ownership FAQ) now points at ONE address — support@heynova.tech — with an honest 'early access, a founder reads every message' expectation line where users initiate contact. hello@ and partners@ removed from the site.
- Example-preview labelling: the homepage phone mockup now shows an 'Example preview' caption above the frame (NovaLiveDemo, FirstMinutesStrip and FirstCatchProof's illustrative branch already carried theirs).
- Unit-economics panel on /admin-health now carries an honest footnote: counts include internal / owner test accounts until launch; a test-account tag will exclude them once real customers land.
- OWNER-SETUP.md gains a pre-launch mailbox + email-deliverability section: create support@heynova.tech before go-live, and add SPF, DKIM and DMARC records on heynova.tech before Resend sending starts.
- Departments · AI-search visibility, blog, press kit
GEO/llms layer, a real blog engine, a press kit, and a sweep for polish
- AI-search / GEO: /llms.txt rewritten as a factual, plain-text summary of what Nova is, plans in ZAR, the approval model, and every key page — the file every AI answer engine reads before citing us. robots.txt now explicitly Allows GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, anthropic-ai, Claude-Web, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, Google-Extended, and Applebot-Extended (sensitive routes still Disallowed for each). /.well-known/security.txt added — contact, expiry, policy link.
- /blog is live: file-based (no CMS), Article JSON-LD, per-post OG image via buildOgImage, canonical URLs, author 'Nova team', honest dates. Seeded with four grounded posts — the approval-first model explained, what an AI chief-of-staff actually costs in 2026, WhatsApp policy in 2026, and email forwarding as the underrated way to start. Every 'as of 2026' number is labelled 'verify current pricing'. No invented user stories, no fake stats.
- /press is live: one-paragraph factual boilerplate (Paarl, South Africa · permission-first · early access), at-a-glance facts, wordmark shown on dark and light backgrounds (React component, screenshottable), brand colour + typography note, and a support@heynova.tech contact. No invented press quotes, no fabricated 'as seen in'. Founder name omitted deliberately — none appears in the codebase to cite.
- Polish: /faq, /help, /status, /blog, /blog/:slug and /press now use unique buildOgImage previews; each has its own canonical and twitter:image. Sitemap adds all six new URLs plus one entry per blog post. Newsletter capture was skipped in this pass — no subscribers table exists, and adding one would require a new migration outside the scope of this pass; noted for a future round.
- Departments · FAQ, help center, public status
Three new public surfaces so answers arrive before questions do
- /faq is live: 18 straight-answer questions grouped by Getting started, Pricing & billing, Trust & control, and WhatsApp & connections. Every answer is verifiably true of the product today — approval model, free-tier scope, 14-day refund, cancellation, timezone-aware briefings, WhatsApp as approval surface. Ships with FAQPage JSON-LD for Google rich results and AI-answer citations. Homepage FAQ accordion now links here.
- /help is live: a lightweight docs hub with 16 short articles covering the real user journeys — connecting sources, approving/snoozing/dismissing cards, understanding the briefing, memory export, tier differences, changing/cancelling, plus a troubleshooting set. Client-side search and category filter, no CMS. Linked from the footer and from the FloatingSupportTab (help first, then contact).
- /status is now a real public status page derived from the same real signals as /admin-health but sanitised: four public-safe groups (Website, Card engine, Morning briefings, Connections) with operational/degraded/incident/unavailable state. When we can't read a signal we say 'status unavailable' — we never fake green. 60-second cache at the edge, no internal thresholds or table names leaked. Honest early-access note about uptime history.
- Performance · cheap-device reality pass
Bundle audit, graceful blur degradation, and adversarial route QA
- Bundle audit against a production build: heavy libraries (jspdf 377 KB, html2canvas 196 KB, xyflow 121 KB, recharts 50 KB) are confirmed OFF the homepage critical path — each ships only when its authenticated route or export action is opened. Homepage route chunk is ~56 KB; below-the-fold sections (FirstCatchProof, HonestLimits, ComingToNova, GalleryTeaser, NovaLiveDemo, PeopleMosaic, ScrollSteps, WhoItsFor, LandingBelowFold) already load via React.lazy after the hero.
- Cheap-device fix: backdrop-filter is expensive on low-end Android GPUs, so glass surfaces now respect prefers-reduced-transparency AND prefers-reduced-data (Chrome/Edge Save-Data hint). On those cohorts the blur drops out cleanly — the solid glass backgrounds and hairline borders keep the layout intact. Design on capable devices is untouched.
- Fonts already ship with font-display: swap and both weights are preloaded with fetchPriority=high — text paints before Inter arrives.
- Adversarial QA against /, /pricing, /trust, /gallery, /changelog, /roi, /walkthrough, /terms, /privacy, /security, /compare, /for/business-owners, /auth: all 200, zero console errors, zero hydration warnings.
- Compliance · terms + go-live blocker note
Terms of Service verified, refund policy formalised, DNS flagged as #1 go-live blocker
- /terms is live and Paddle-review-ready: plain-language Terms of Service in Nova voice covering service description, eligibility, approval-first responsibility, AI output disclaimer, subscription billing with Paddle as merchant of record, a clearly-headed 14-day refund policy that matches the pricing page promise, cancellation, limitation of liability, and South African governing law. Header note flags that this is a plain-language summary and should be professionally reviewed before scale.
- /privacy and /security remain distinct standalone routes — no merge weakened either. Footer links to Security, Privacy and Terms all resolve; sitemap.xml lists all three.
- Risk-class audit: the LOW auto-executing class is confirmed to contain only local state changes (snooze, dismiss, mark read) — zero external writes. The public 'nothing sends, books, or pays without your tap' promise and the AGENTS.md contract are aligned, not in tension.
- OWNER-SETUP.md and CUTOVER.md now flag DNS/domain connection as the #1 go-live blocker: until heynova.tech serves, canonicals point at a domain that returns nothing, and organic acquisition is structurally blocked regardless of what else ships.
- Ops · proactive alerts + unit economics
Owner ops alert cron and honest unit-economics view on /admin-health
- New daily 06:00 UTC hook at /api/public/hooks/owner-ops-alert composes a short ops message from the same traffic-light signals as /admin-health. Red → 'Nova ops alert: N failing — <signal>: <detail>'. All-green → one-line daily summary. Delivery dry-runs and logs the composed text until owner email creds (RESEND_API_KEY + NOVA_DIGEST_FROM + NOVA_OWNER_EMAIL) are configured — same honest pattern as the weekly digest.
- New 'Unit economics' section on /admin-health (below the traffic-light grid) shows per-plan active subscriptions, broker accounts by provider, and AI events per day for the last 14 days. The estimated-cost panel shows the formula (broker_accounts × Unipile per-account fee + AI events × blended cost/event) and intentionally displays 'estimates pending owner-supplied rates' until the real unit costs are entered — never a fake precise number.
- Roadmap · tier gating consolidated
One config for which connections each plan unlocks
- The provider → required-tier matrix (Gmail, Outlook, Google Calendar, WhatsApp, iCloud/IMAP on Plus · LinkedIn, Instagram, Messenger, Telegram on Business) now lives in a single client-safe module used by both the Connections page and server-side connect flows. No behaviour change for existing users; one place to tune going forward.
- New unit tests cover the whole tier × connection matrix — Personal → upgrade, Plus with headroom → pass, Plus at included → add-on offer, Plus at ceiling → tier upgrade, social channels always route to Business, grandfathered owner always passes.
- Free-tier essentials (email forwarding, .ics calendar, manual capture) remain visible and unlocked on Connections; gated brokers show a positive 'Unlock with Plus/Business' pill rather than being hidden.
- Roadmap · admin health + OG
Traffic-light system overview and unique share previews on every route
- /admin-health now shows a real-data traffic-light grid: nightly briefings, watcher due-cards, agents tick, uptime probe, card creation rate, integration health, outbound webhooks, and system errors — each with its threshold and source column visible. Signals we can't measure honestly (AI failure rate — no status column on ai_usage_events) show grey 'not instrumented' rather than fake green.
- Every significant public route now has its own on-brand share preview generated by the SVG OG template: /security, /privacy, /gallery, /changelog, /roi, and /walkthrough previously fell back to the site default. Home, /pricing, /how-it-works, /compare/*, and /for/* already had unique previews.
- Roadmap · annual + memory export
Annual billing scaffold and memory export with provenance
- Annual billing UI is scaffolded on /pricing behind a single feature flag. Until Paddle annual prices are wired, selecting Annual shows an honest 'Annual is almost ready — start monthly and we'll offer you the switch' state instead of a dead button.
- Memory export on /memory now downloads a JSON with a scope header — exactly what's included (your memory rows with source, confidence, created/updated timestamps) and what's excluded (chat, agent state, connected-account tokens). Any missing provenance fields are noted, not fabricated.
- Trust + transparency
Honest limits, WhatsApp framing, and a public changelog
- New homepage section — 'What Nova won't pretend to do' — five honest limits stated plainly, so you know what you're signing up for before you sign up.
- WhatsApp framing sharpened everywhere: Nova is an approval surface, not a chatbot. One message when something needs your tap; reply 1 to send, 2 to snooze.
- Trust page adds a WhatsApp policy line and a Timezone-safe scheduling pillar (verified — every card that carries a time uses your timezone, not the server clock).
- Pricing page now states 'For:' plainly under every tier, Linear/Stripe-style, so it's obvious which plan fits you.
- Public /changelog page — this one. Every meaningful ship, dated. Newest first.
- First-catch proof band on the homepage — clearly labelled as illustrative until real customers give written permission to publish their names.
- Competitive hardening
Permission-first differentiator + cancellation honesty
- New homepage block: Nova never takes irreversible actions without your tap — the direct answer to the category's biggest trust gap.
- Cancellation honesty on /pricing: cancel any time in Settings, takes effect end of billing period, no email-us-to-cancel, no dark patterns.
- Mobile-first proof band: home-screen install, WhatsApp approvals, works on any phone including Android.
- Comparison pages tightened with verified 2026 facts (Motion has no free plan, Martin Basic caps concurrent tasks at 2, Reclaim has no dedicated mobile app).
- Launch-prep
SEO overhaul, security hardening, and full payment lifecycle
- SEO pass: sitemap now lists only publicly indexable routes with canonical URLs; every page has a distinct title and description; Organization + SoftwareApplication + FAQ JSON-LD wired in.
- Homepage performance: lazy-loaded below-the-fold imagery, explicit width/height to prevent layout shift, code-split heavy routes, preconnect hints for third-party origins.
- Security: tightened Row-Level Security on user-owned tables, tightened Content-Security-Policy (no more unsafe-eval), and added a CSP violation reporter that logs to the operations audit trail.
- Payments: full Paddle lifecycle now covered — created, updated, canceled, past-due, paused, resumed, transaction completed, transaction payment failed, refunds and adjustments.
- PWA: Nova is now installable to the home screen with an offline-safe service worker that ships fresh HTML on every visit but caches hashed assets aggressively.
- AI disclosures: every AI-drafted card, briefing, and WhatsApp reply carries a plain 'AI-drafted — review before approving' line so nothing sends without your approval.
- Accessibility: keyboard focus rings across every interactive control, aria-labels on icon-only buttons, WCAG AA contrast locked with a full regression matrix in CI.
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