Archived software project

Chariot Nova

Exploring how information in communication streams could become structured, actionable data that moves between systems.

Founded and built by Sam Black

A provider-independent product concept, taken into a working prototype: Spellcaster, which detected email deadlines and created Outlook calendar events through Microsoft Graph.

Project archived. Product no longer available.

The problem

Important work stays buried in messages.

A deadline in an email. An appointment in a thread. A promise to follow up. Communication carries commitments, but people still have to translate them into calendars, tasks, and reminders by hand.

The product idea

Give that information a way to move.

Chariot Nova explored an intermediary layer: extract useful information, normalize it into event or workflow data, then route it to the systems where it could be acted on. Email was the first input surface; the concept extended beyond any one provider.

Architectural direction

One process, different systems.

Concept · broader than the MVP

Potential inputsEmail & communications

Chariot NovaExtract Normalize Route

Potential destinationsCalendars · Tasks
Notifications · Other services

The intended architecture separated information extraction from individual providers and destinations. Cross-provider routing and synchronization remained product direction; the services shown here were not all implemented integrations.

The implemented prototype

Spellcaster

The first concrete implementation.

Spellcaster’s 2025 prototype scanned Outlook email for deadlines, extracted dates, and created calendar events through Microsoft Graph. This flow was tested on Sam’s own inbox and calendar.

A later iteration in 2026 added a workflow for reviewing and tracking obligations, with source evidence attached. Outlook remained the initial integration; working across providers and destination services was the broader Chariot Nova direction.

The MVP review queue showing a proposed deadline, its email evidence, editable fields, and confirm and dismiss controls. — **The later review interface · 2026.** Captured from the preserved prototype code for this archive, using the repository’s test fixture. Sample data, not a live mailbox or customer account.

What was built

Across the original prototype and later review iteration.

Python · Flask · Microsoft Graph
MSAL · SQLite · pytest

Mailbox ingestion: Microsoft OAuth sign-in, token caching and refresh, and bounded scans of recent Inbox and Sent Items messages through Microsoft Graph.
Email to calendar · 2025: The original scan pipeline identified deadline-related email, parsed dates, and created Outlook calendar events through Microsoft Graph. Sam tested the flow on his own inbox and calendar.
Structured extraction: Rules and date parsing identified explicit deadlines, promised follow-ups, and selected awaiting-reply cases. Candidates retained the source text and extraction reason.
Review before action: A review queue let people edit, confirm, or dismiss candidates. Confirmed obligations appeared in a dashboard for due, overdue, upcoming, awaiting-reply, and completed work.
Persistent state: SQLite stored messages, obligations, and their evidence. Repeated scans deduplicated candidates, preserving review decisions instead of starting over.

Prototype scope. The original integration supported one-way calendar-event creation. Extraction was rules-based, with date and timezone limitations during testing. The later review workflow kept calendar creation separate from its scan path. Cross-provider routing, ongoing synchronization, and notification delivery remained product direction.

Project status

Archived, and kept as a record of the work.

Chariot Nova is no longer an active company or product. This page documents the idea, the architecture it explored, and the software Sam Black built to test it.