The pipeline

# Part 5 — The pipeline (research → delivery)

## 5.1 The five phases

Once a project exists, its content moves through five pipeline phases:

```
INTAKE  →  RESEARCH  →  STORY  →  MEDIA  →  DELIVERY
```

| Phase | What happens | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| **Intake** | Your wizard answers are organised; you upload photos / audio / documents. | Upload assets; tag the most important. |
| **Research** | The AI generates **research summaries** for each major person and event in EN and FR. | Read each summary; request revisions or edits. |
| **Story** | The AI generates **chapters** stitched from the research and your tone preferences, again in EN and FR. | Read chapters; revise paragraphs; ask for rewrites. |
| **Media** | Portraits, B‑roll, audio narration, and the audiobook are generated — bilingual where applicable. | Approve or request retakes. |
| **Delivery** | The PDF, EPUB, audiobook, and media bundle are assembled and packaged. | Preview, sign off, distribute. |

## 5.2 The Pipeline Overview card

At the top of every project detail page is a **Pipeline overview** card showing the current status of all five phases. Each phase has one of these states:

| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| **Idle** | Nothing has happened in this phase yet. |
| **Queued / Running** | A job is in progress on the server. |
| **Waiting for you** | The phase is paused for human review (your turn). |
| **Complete** | The phase has finished. |
| **Error** | Something went wrong — contact the team. |

The card auto‑refreshes every few seconds while a job is running.

## 5.3 Where each phase lives in the UI

Inside each project, there's one section per pipeline phase. They're collapsible cards on the detail page, and each one has its own deeper page accessible from the sub‑nav:

- **Research** → `/dashboard/projects/[id]/research`
- **Story** → `/dashboard/projects/[id]/story`
- **Media** → `/dashboard/projects/[id]/media`
- **Delivery** → `/dashboard/projects/[id]/delivery`
- **Timeline** → `/dashboard/projects/[id]/timeline` (chronological events extracted from research)
- **Tree** → `/dashboard/projects/[id]/tree` (the family tree)

Each page shows the relevant content side‑by‑side in **English** and **French** with a tab at the top to switch focus.

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