Daily Dose

Daily Dose is a mobile-first daily puzzle product designed to exceed the standard set by Wordle and Connections through stronger game variety, warmer social play, and a better long-term habit loop.

The product is built around three pillars:

• Universal Daily: a shared puzzle ritual that everyone can play.
• Forge Mode: personalized difficulty, progression, and deeper insight for committed users.
• Tribes: asynchronous social competition designed to increase return without burnout.

The product is designed to be:

• fair and intellectually satisfying
• mobile-first and comfortable to play together on one phone
• operationally lean
• scalable without real-time infrastructure
• adaptable through strong documentation, deterministic systems, and modular UI

Repository Purpose

This repository contains the application code, product specifications, UI system, and execution roadmap for Daily Dose.

The documentation is structured so each file has a clear role:

• documents/TECHNICAL_SPEC.md: authoritative engineering contract and document precedence
• documents/SYSTEMS.md: architecture and operational design
• documents/Games.md: game portfolio and design standards
• documents/Business.md: business model and strategic constraints
• documents/DESIGN_SYSTEM.md: UI engineering contract
• documents/COMPONENT_LIBRARY.md: reusable component rules
• documents/THEME_AND_STYLING_SPEC.md: styling migration and token policy
• documents/TODO.md: execution roadmap

If documents conflict, follow the precedence in documents/TECHNICAL_SPEC.md.

Product Summary

Daily Dose is not a single puzzle mechanic stretched across many surfaces. It is a portfolio of puzzle systems that support:

• a high-quality daily habit
• measurable progression
• selective social competition
• premium monetization without pay-to-win behavior

The target portfolio is:

• 10 core games
• 3 live variants per game where justified
• 1 puzzle per variant for standard players
• 3 puzzles per variant for playtest cohorts

AI is used as a content accelerator and operating layer, not as a source of truth. Deterministic systems define correctness. Founder review is reserved for high-risk changes, exceptions, and periodic quality audit rather than every routine decision.

Product Principles

• Retention over acquisition
• Clarity over complexity
• Determinism over AI authority
• Asynchronous systems over live operational risk
• Quality over content volume
• Mobile-first playability over desktop-first complexity
• Warm social ritual over cold leaderboard mechanics

Technology Stack

• Frontend: Next.js, React, TypeScript
• Backend: Firebase Authentication, Firestore, scheduled jobs
• Hosting: Vercel
• AI: batch generation and evaluation behind deterministic validators

Current Focus

Current work is focused on:

• tightening the documentation so the vision and execution model match
• hardening the UI system for mobile-first, no-scroll gameplay
• stabilizing quality gates and engineering standards
• building the deterministic puzzle pipeline that can support AI-assisted scale

Status

The product is under active development. Documentation is intended to function as an operating system for product, engineering, and design decisions.