Zine Case Study
How Zine demonstrates what's possible when you build on Graphlit.
Zine is proof Graphlit is production-ready. Built 100% on Graphlit, Zine shows how to create team memory that actually works - connecting 20+ tools and making everything searchable with AI.
What is Zine?
The product: Your team's memory, everywhere you work.
What it does:
Connects Slack, Gmail, GitHub, Notion, Linear, Jira, Google Drive, and 20+ other tools
Makes everything searchable with semantic AI (not just keyword matching)
Provides MCP server so your IDE can access your team's knowledge
Automatic sync across all connected sources (configurable polling)
The tech stack: Next.js frontend + Graphlit for everything else.
What Graphlit Enabled
Building on Graphlit let Zine focus on user experience, not infrastructure.
What Zine built
User experience Next.js frontend Product features Deployment
What Graphlit provides
30+ feeds OCR & transcription Embeddings & search Entity extraction Knowledge graph Multi-tenant isolation Webhook management Automatic sync
Result: Ship features, not infrastructure. Zine went from idea to production in weeks, not months.
The Development Story: AI-Assisted Velocity
Zine demonstrates what's possible when you combine Graphlit's platform with modern AI coding tools.
Timeline:
March: First line of code
6 weeks later: Working MVP
June (3 months): Paying customers
Today: Production SaaS with multiple workspaces
How it was built:
One developer (not even a frontend specialist)
AI coding tools: Claude Code, Cline, Factory Droid
Graphlit TypeScript SDK
"Vibe coding" approach - describe what you want, AI implements it
What this enabled:
Focus on product experience, not infrastructure plumbing
Iterate rapidly based on user feedback
Ship features in days, not weeks
Solo developer building what used to require a full engineering org
Traditional approach
6-12 months to build infrastructure Large engineering team Stitching together 10+ services Custom OAuth for each connector Vector DB management Scaling challenges
Graphlit + AI coding
6 weeks to MVP One developer (AI-assisted) One SDK, one platform 30+ feeds work immediately Production-ready from day one Focus on user experience
Key insight: The right infrastructure abstractions unlock AI-assisted development. Graphlit's SDK is designed to be AI-coding-friendly.
The Problem Zine Solves
Before Zine
Knowledge scattered everywhere:
💬 Slack conversations (decisions, discussions)
📧 Gmail threads (customer communications)
📅 Meeting recordings (context, action items)
📝 Notion docs (specs, wikis)
🐛 Linear/Jira issues (product roadmap)
💻 GitHub discussions (technical decisions)
The pain:
"What did Sarah from Acme Corp say about pricing?" → Check 5 tools manually
"Why did we make this decision?" → Lost in Slack history
"What were the action items from last week's call?" → Scroll through recordings
Time wasted: Hours per week per person searching for context.
After Zine
One search across everything:
Search: "Acme Corp pricing concerns"
Results:
📧 Email (Oct 12): Sarah initial inquiry
💬 Slack (Oct 13): Team discussion
📅 Meeting (Oct 15): Sales call transcript
📝 Notion (Oct 16): Deal notes
🐛 Linear (Oct 17): Pricing feature requestTime saved: Seconds to find anything.
Powered by Graphlit's semantic memory.
How Zine Works
Multi-Source Ingestion
Zine creates Graphlit feeds for each connected tool (Slack, Gmail, GitHub, etc.).
Example: Connect Slack channel → Graphlit handles:
OAuth token refresh
Message polling
Thread preservation
File extraction
Deduplication
Result: Connect once, syncs forever. No webhook infrastructure needed.
Entity Extraction (Knowledge Graph)
Zine enables entity extraction in workflows.
Graphlit automatically extracts:
People (e.g., "Sarah Chen, CTO")
Organizations (e.g., "Acme Corp")
Places (e.g., "San Francisco")
Events (e.g., "Q4 Planning Meeting")
Products mentioned
Use case: "Show me all interactions with Acme Corp" → Graphlit finds mentions across Slack, email, docs, meetings.
Multi-Tenant Architecture
Pattern: Each Zine workspace = separate Graphlit environment.
Benefits:
Complete data isolation per customer
Independent scaling
Usage tracking per workspace
Easy data deletion
Unified Search
Zine uses Graphlit's hybrid search (vector + keyword) across all connected sources.
Filters available:
By source (Slack, Gmail, docs, etc.)
By date range
By entities (people, organizations)
By content type
Graphlit handles:
Vector embeddings
Search ranking
Result deduplication
Cross-source search
AI Chat with Context
Zine creates Graphlit conversations that automatically retrieve relevant context from the user's knowledge base.
Features:
Streaming responses
Automatic context injection
Multi-turn memory
Source citations
Meeting Intelligence
Zine ingests meeting recordings via Graphlit audio processing.
Graphlit provides:
Audio transcription (Deepgram, AssemblyAI)
Entity extraction from transcripts
Searchable meeting content
Summary generation
What Builders Can Learn from Zine
1. AI Coding + Great SDKs = Velocity
The MVP was built in 6 weeks with AI coding tools (Claude Code, Cline, Factory Droid). Paying customers in 3 months.
Why it worked:
Graphlit SDK is AI-coding-friendly (clear patterns, TypeScript types)
Platform handles all the hard infrastructure problems
Focus 100% on user experience and product
2. Multi-Tenant Architecture
Use separate Graphlit environments per customer for complete data isolation.
3. Focus on Your Unique Value
Don't build OAuth management, feed polling, vector search, or transcription. Let Graphlit handle infrastructure.
Time saved: Months of infrastructure work → weeks building product features.
4. Entity Extraction from Day One
Enable entity extraction in workflows - it unlocks powerful queries like "Show me all interactions with Acme Corp."
5. Production Patterns
Retry logic for transient failures
Usage tracking per customer
Background jobs for long operations
Client caching for performance
Zine's lesson: Build with platforms, not from scratch. Use AI coding to accelerate. Ship fast, iterate fast.
Zine's Tech Stack
Frontend
Next.js TypeScript Tailwind CSS
Backend
Next.js API routes Graphlit TypeScript SDK Clerk (auth & user metadata) Redis (caching)
Infrastructure
Vercel (hosting) Graphlit (content/AI)
What Zine didn't build: Vector databases, embedding pipelines, search infrastructure, 30+ feed connectors, OAuth management, audio transcription, entity extraction, knowledge graphs.
Result: Focus 100% on user experience and product features.
Try Zine or Build Your Own
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Zine went from idea to paying customers in 3 months. What will you build?
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