# Build brief — a focused alternative to Workelo

> **Verdict:** Partly, if you narrow it · **Buildability:** 43/100 · **Category:** HR
> **Source:** https://www.canitbevibecoded.com/workelo
> Independent editorial assessment from Can It Be Vibe Coded? Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or derived from Workelo. Verify current pricing and capabilities before acting.

## Context

**Workelo** — Templated onboarding, crossboarding and offboarding journeys for HR teams, with task assignment, reminders and an employee-facing portal.

Strip away the branding and Workelo is a workflow engine: journey templates, tasks with owners and due dates relative to a start date, reminders, and a page the new hire actually sees. That part is genuinely a focused build, and for a five person company a self-hosted version is fine. What breaks is everything at the edges: HRIS sync, Google Workspace and Slack account provisioning, equipment requests routed to IT, document signing, and the audit trail HR wants when someone leaves. Also worth naming the obvious: this is a tool for coordinating other people, so a personal build only pays off if you are the one running onboarding. If you are, you get most of the value; if you need it to talk to your HRIS, you will spend the weekend on OAuth instead of features.

This brief describes a focused, single-operator replacement for the part of Workelo that is genuinely reproducible. It is deliberately narrower than the product it replaces, and it says so in writing. Build the useful core; do not pretend to have rebuilt the rest.

## What you are building

A self-hosted app where you define onboarding and offboarding journey templates as tasks offset from a start date, launch one per employee, assign owners, and email everyone their overdue items daily.

- Run internal workflows such as time-off requests, onboarding checklists, and review cycles.
- A responsive interface with real empty, loading, success, and error states.

## Requirements

### Functional

- Node 20 and a place to run it (a small VPS or a container).
- Someone willing to keep the templates current, which is the actual work.

### Data and integrations

- SMTP credentials for reminder emails, or nothing if you accept an in-app inbox only.

Each of these needs a real account, credential, or quota. Set them up before writing feature code.

### Non-functional

- Accessibility: semantic markup, labelled controls, visible focus, and reduced-motion support.
- Security: server-side secrets, validated input, and no credentials in the client bundle.
- Reliability: retries with backoff on external calls, and a clear failure state when a provider is down.
- Portability: the operator can export their data and leave without losing it.

## Implementation brief

Build a self-hosted employee onboarding and offboarding tracker. Empty folder, no scaffolding questions, just build it.

Stack, non negotiable: Next.js 15 with the App Router and TypeScript, SQLite through Prisma, Tailwind for styling, server actions for all mutations. No external auth provider. No telemetry. No analytics.

Data model:
- Journey template: name, type (onboarding, crossboarding, offboarding), list of TaskTemplates.
- TaskTemplate: title, description (markdown), owner role (manager, hr, it, employee), dayOffset (integer, negative means before the start or exit date), optional link.
- Employee: name, personal email, work email, role, manager name, manager email, startDate, exitDate (nullable), status.
- Journey: created by applying a template to an employee, snapshots the tasks so later template edits do not rewrite history.
- Task: title, description, ownerEmail resolved at launch, dueDate computed from dayOffset plus the anchor date, done flag, completedAt.

Features in scope:
- CRUD for templates with a drag free ordering (just an integer sort field and up/down buttons).
- Launch a journey: pick employee plus template, preview computed due dates, confirm.
- Dashboard: all active journeys, percent complete, overdue count, sorted by nearest due date.
- Per journey view grouped by week relative to the anchor date, checkboxes that complete tasks via server actions.
- A tokenized public task page at /me/[token] so a new hire or manager can see and tick their own tasks without an account. Token is a random 32 char string on the journey, unguessable, no login.
- A daily digest script (npm run digest) that finds tasks due or overdue and emails each owner one summary. Use nodemailer with SMTP_HOST, SMTP_USER, SMTP_PASS, MAIL_FROM from .env. If those are unset, print the emails to stdout instead of failing.
- Seed script with one realistic onboarding template (about 15 tasks spanning day -7 to day +30) and one offboarding template (about 10 tasks).

Explicitly out of scope: HRIS or ATS integrations, Slack or Google Workspace provisioning, e-signature, file uploads, multi tenancy, role based admin permissions. One admin, protected by a single ADMIN_PASSWORD in .env checked in middleware with a cookie. That is enough.

Deliver a README with setup, .env.example, prisma migrate command, and a cron line for the digest. Make the /me pages look decent on a phone; that is the only surface an employee ever sees.

## Delivery standard

- Inspect the repository first, then write a short implementation plan before writing code.
- Deliver the smallest complete end-to-end workflow first; every primary control must work against persisted data.
- Use real validation and storage; never substitute fake dashboards, decorative controls, hard-coded success states, or mock integrations.
- Include responsive layouts plus genuine empty, loading, success, validation, and failure states.
- Keep secrets server-side in environment variables, provide .env.example, and never commit credentials or user data.
- Add structured logs around every external call and return actionable errors without leaking sensitive details.
- Write unit tests for the core logic and one automated test of the main user journey.
- Finish with a README covering setup, architecture, data location, backups, tests, deployment, and known limitations.

## Acceptance criteria

- [ ] A clean install starts the app using only the README and .env.example.
- [ ] The primary journey works from first visit through saved result, reload, edit, export, and deletion where applicable.
- [ ] Invalid input, missing configuration, provider failure, and an empty database each have a usable state.
- [ ] The interface works at 390px and 1440px, is keyboard navigable, and shows visible focus on every control.
- [ ] Tests, type checking, linting, and a production build all pass with no ignored failures.
- [ ] No part of the interface implies a live integration, security guarantee, or scale capability that was not actually built and verified.

## Non-goals

Do not build these, and do not claim to have replaced them:

- HRIS and ATS connectors, so employee records get typed in by hand.
- Automatic account and access provisioning in Google Workspace, Slack, and IT tools, plus the deprovisioning checklist on exit.
- E-signature and document collection flows that a legal team will accept.
- The polished employee-facing portal and email design that makes day one feel intentional rather than homemade.
- Reporting, audit logs, and the GDPR paperwork story your HR lead will ask about.

## What you still own after launch

- Run migrations, backups, restores, and dependency updates.
- Test the critical journey after every model, API, or hosting change.
- Monitor failures and fix the edge cases a first prompt will miss.
- Maintain every third-party integration as APIs and OAuth rules change.

## Risk

**High consequence.** Use this as a prototype or personal aid. Keep a qualified human and an established provider in the loop for consequential decisions.

Editorial confidence in this assessment: medium. No reviewed project implementation is linked yet.

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Generated by [Can It Be Vibe Coded?](https://www.canitbevibecoded.com) · Full report: https://www.canitbevibecoded.com/workelo