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Build stories from live projects

Month-by-month build diaries and problem-solving notes from products we have shipped — written by the developers who built them.

Stories by project

KMI HRM, part 3: putting HR on the phone with KMI Connect

October and November 2026 on KMI HRM: how the KMI Connect app gained My HRM for employees and HR Admin for managers, with approvals, live punches and salary sheets that follow the website’s rules.

Flow LGX, part 14: after launch — what real users changed

November 2026 on Flow LGX: the first weeks with real users, the kinds of fixes that only appear in production, and what comes next for the platform.

Problem solved: syncing fingerprint machines from a phone, with no PC on site

How the KMI Connect Android app can stand in for a PC agent: finding biometric machines on the Wi-Fi, talking their protocol directly, and a simple rule so a phone and a PC never run one machine at once.

KMI HRM, part 2: from attendance to a complete salary sheet

October 2026 on KMI HRM: company hierarchy from business to department, a 20-step employee registration, peshgi advances, salary sheets and payslips, and live alerts for missed punches.

Karobar, part 2: from invoices to a shop that can really run on it

October 2026 on Karobar: receipt printing, the Android app, free WhatsApp bills, email from the shop’s own Gmail, returns, an online shop and a public demo that resets every night.

Flow LGX, part 13: building, deploying and going live

October 2026 on Flow LGX: production builds, caching rules for fast repeat visits, the public website and mobile app page, final fixes, and handing a live logistics platform to the client.

Problem solved: knowing a live platform is healthy without reading server logs

How Flow LGX gives the platform owner a plain-language health page — performance score, API errors, average and P95 response times, scan problems — plus security alerts on the dashboard.

Problem solved: shop bills that keep working when the internet drops

How Karobar keeps billing through internet cuts: a local copy of the shop, an outbox for new bills, sync that fetches only what changed, and why applying the same record twice has to be harmless.

Problem solved: changing salary rules without changing last month’s pay

How KMI HRM handles changing salary rules: rules with effective dates per company level, a one-day tester for HR, and keeping short days, overtime and leave rules out of the code.

Karobar, part 1: a brief from Melbourne, and a first test in Pakistan

September 2026 on Karobar: how a Melbourne client’s request became shop software with plans, trials and a super admin from the first month, and why it was tested in Pakistan first.

Flow LGX, part 12: live notifications, audit logs and testing every role

September 2026 on Flow LGX: real-time notifications over Socket.io, notification settings, an audit log of who did what, a support desk for direct customers, and how we tested nine roles end to end.

Problem solved: live notifications that recover after the network drops

How Flow LGX keeps real-time notifications reliable on unstable connections: authenticated Socket.io, automatic reconnection with back-off, and refreshing cached data instead of trusting every message.

KMI HRM, part 1: getting punches from fingerprint machines to a live screen

August 2026 on KMI HRM: a small agent next to the biometric machines, saving every punch locally first, a live attendance display, and the time zone bug that showed everyone arriving five hours early.

Flow LGX, part 11: subscriptions, seats, invoices and Stripe

August 2026 on Flow LGX: subscription plans with included admin and driver seats, per-seat pricing, job billing invoices with payment timelines and refunds, and card payments through Stripe.

Problem solved: take a deposit at booking, collect the balance later

How Flow LGX splits a freight payment into a deposit at booking and a balance charged later — with a payment timeline, clear statuses and a one-click “capture balance” for staff.

Flow LGX, part 10: the quote marketplace — RFQs, carrier prices and countdowns

July 2026 on Flow LGX: requests for quotes with full freight details, carriers responding with price and timing, quotes that expire on a countdown, and a vendor marketplace with ratings and compliance status.

Flow LGX, part 9: self-service onboarding for carriers and customers

June 2026 on Flow LGX: a public “Become a carrier” flow, invite links for vendors, compliance documents with expiry, review by the super admin team, and versioned terms for each user type.

Flow LGX, part 8: roles, permissions and seats for a SaaS platform

May 2026 on Flow LGX: growing from a few roles to nine, giving distributors their own workspace as sub-admins, limited super-admin staff roles, and admin and driver seats.

Problem solved: turning a single-company app into SaaS without a rewrite

Six months into Flow LGX the client changed direction to SaaS. How we extended the platform instead of starting again — what we kept, what we wrapped, and the order we changed things in.

Flow LGX, part 7: the turn — from one company’s tool to a SaaS product

April 2026 on Flow LGX: six months in, the client asked to turn a single-company logistics platform into a SaaS product where each company manages itself. What changed, and what we kept.

Flow LGX, part 6: the first working version — jobs, warehouses and exceptions

March 2026 on Flow LGX: the first complete operational loop — jobs, warehouses, inbound and outbound work, barcode scanning, inventory, and an exceptions workflow for damaged or missing freight.

Problem solved: barcode scanning when the label does not match

How Flow LGX lets warehouse staff receive freight by scanning a barcode, QR code, SKU or reference — and what happens when the scan matches nothing, or matches the wrong item.

Flow LGX, part 5: sign-in, one-time codes and connecting the APIs

February 2026 on Flow LGX: the full sign-in journey with email codes, how each role’s API module is organised, and the caching rules that keep a busy dashboard fast without stale data.

Problem solved: keeping login tokens out of browser storage, with silent refresh

How Flow LGX keeps the access token in memory instead of localStorage, refreshes it through a secure cookie, and queues requests during a refresh so users are never logged out mid-task.

Flow LGX, part 4: project structure, roles and protected pages

January 2026 on Flow LGX: organising a React and TypeScript codebase by role and feature, one protected layout for every signed-in user, and role-based routes that keep each user in their own area.

Problem solved: one layout for nine user roles, without leaking pages

How Flow LGX serves nine different user roles from one React layout and router while making sure nobody can open a page that is not meant for them — including limited super-admin staff.

Flow LGX, part 3: building the dashboards from the design

December 2025 on Flow LGX: a shared component library, data tables, forms with validation, status badges and skeleton loading — and why every page reuses the same twelve pieces.

Flow LGX, part 2: milestone 1 — turning the designer’s screens into a plan

November 2025 on Flow LGX: receiving the Figma design, listing every screen and state, and turning colours, type and spacing into reusable building blocks before writing pages.

Flow LGX, part 1: the brief — one platform for one logistics business

How the Flow LGX project started in October 2025: a simple brief from a Toronto logistics client, the questions we asked, and the job lifecycle we agreed before any screen was drawn.