batty

"All those ideas will be lost in time, like tears in rain."

batty is a self-hosted AI idea capture pipeline. Send voice or text messages to a Telegram bot, get structured and prioritised ideas back, and wake up to a daily AI-generated digest that tells you what actually matters.

Built with n8n, Node.js, and the nicodAImus API.

Full setup guide: nicodaimus.com/blog/you-are-the-goldmine-build-your-ai-idea-pipeline

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Quick start

git clone https://github.com/nicodaimus/batty.git
cd batty
cp .env.example .env
chmod 600 .env
# Edit .env and fill in your tokens
docker compose up -d

Then import ideas-pipeline.json into n8n at http://your-server:5678.

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What's in this repo

File	Purpose
ideas-store.js	Lightweight Node.js server - stores ideas as JSON, handles bot commands
ideas-review.mjs	Daily + weekly AI review script - sends digest to Telegram
ideas-pipeline.json	n8n workflow template - import this into n8n
docker-compose.yml	Full stack (ideas-store + n8n, optional Whisper)
.env.example	Configuration template

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Requirements

• Docker with Compose plugin
• A Telegram account and bot token (from @BotFather)
• A nicodAImus account on the alfred plan or higher

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Multi-project mode (optional)

By default batty captures everything into a single pipeline. If you track more than one project and want a single bot to route ideas into each one, set PROJECTS in .env to a comma-separated list:

PROJECTS=web,mobile,ops
PROJECT_web_TODO=./web/TODO.md
PROJECT_mobile_TODO=./mobile/TODO.md
PROJECT_ops_TODO=./ops/TODO.md

Then restart the stack:

docker compose restart ideas-store n8n

When enabled:

• Routing: the AI detects each idea's project from a [prefix] at the start of the message or from a project name mention anywhere in the text. Ambiguous messages default to the first project in your list. A single message can mix projects - each idea is classified independently.
• Tagged output: bot replies prefix every idea with its project: [web] #12 Add dark mode.
• Filters: /list mobile, /status ops, /archive web scope any browse command to one project. /list with no arg shows all projects side-by-side.
• Grouped reports: the daily and weekly digests include a section per project so each one gets its own ROI scores, next-week focus, and stale-idea flags.
• Backfill: if you enable multi-project on an existing install, batty auto-assigns every pre-existing idea to the first project in your list the next time the ideas-store starts.

Leaving PROJECTS unset keeps batty in the classic single-project mode - no breaking changes.

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Voice transcription (optional)

Uncomment the whisper-asr service in docker-compose.yml, then restart:

docker compose up -d whisper-asr

Requires ~1.5 GB of free RAM for the small model. See the full guide for details.

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License

MIT