What a completed brief looks like.

# Intake Brief — Northgate Renovation Co.

**Generated:** 2026-04-12T15:32:08.000Z  ·  **Tenant ID:** `northgate-renovation-co-h7q2`  ·  **Source:** dbai-intake-director-web/v1

## Executive summary

Northgate Renovation Co. (Renovation / construction / home services, 6–20 team, $1M–$10M revenue) is deploying a hierarchical AI agent team on **dbai_sdk_n8n**. Day-1 P0 specialists: 7. Global autonomy default: **draft** with a 7-day shadow-mode warmup.

## A. Identity & business context

- **Operator:** Jordan Vega (COO) · jordan@northgate.example
- **Company:** Northgate Renovation Co. — legal entity: Northgate Holdings LLC
- **Website:** https://northgate.example
- **Industry:** Renovation / construction / home services (autofill pack: renovation)
- **Team size:** 6–20
- **Revenue band:** $1M–$10M
- **Locations:** Austin TX HQ, San Antonio TX field crew
- **Timezones:** CT
- **Brands / DBAs:** Northgate Renovation, Northgate Outdoor Living
- **Languages:** en, es

**Stack in use:** JobNimbus, BuilderTrend, CompanyCam, Procore, ServiceTitan, Houzz Pro, Angi, Thumbtack, Google Local Services Ads, QuickBooks Online, Square, Stripe, Google Calendar, Slack, Google Drive, Twilio, Birdeye, Mailchimp, Typeform, Calendly, GA4
**Automation footprint:** Zapier, n8n (light)
**Other tools:** EagleView, Houzz Pro photo library

## B. Discovery & data ingestion consent

- **Data residency:** us
- **Retention (hot / cold):** 90d / 730d
- **Excluded labels:** legal, hr-internal
- **Excluded senders:** @attorneys.example
- **Excluded folders:** Drive/HR Confidential
- **Voice-cloning sources:** Sent folder Jan 2025 – Apr 2026, Fireflies team workspace (sales calls), Top-15 5-star Birdeye review replies

| Source | Level | Ingestor |
|---|---|---|
| Gmail | read_draft | claude |
| Google Drive / Docs / Sheets | read | claude |
| Google Calendar | read_draft | claude |
| Slack | read_draft | claude |
| JobNimbus | read_act | claude |
| QuickBooks Online | read | claude |
| Houzz Pro / GBP / Yelp | read_draft | claude |

## C. Goals & outcomes

**Top outcomes:**
- Cut lead-response time from 6h to under 30 min
- Generate 30+ qualified estimates/month autonomously
- Never miss a Houzz / GBP review again

- **30-day:** All inbound leads triaged within 30 min, draft estimate within 24h, 100% review-response coverage on 1-3⭐.
- **60-day:** Subcontractor scheduling drafted by agent, permit-tracker live for current jobs, daily ops report adopted by leadership.
- **90-day:** Quote-to-job rate up 15%, manual inbox time down 80%, +$200k pipeline attributable to faster response.
- **Revenue target:** +$200k incremental pipeline by Q3 2026
- **Time-saved target:** 25 hrs/week
**Bottlenecks:** Slow lead response on weekends, Manual subcontractor scheduling, Permit follow-ups falling through the cracks
**Kill conditions:** Any auto-sent customer email with a wrong price; Any homeowner-facing reply that breaches Texas residential contractor rules; Permit deadline missed because of agent error
**Customer / ICP:** US homeowners, single-family detached, $500k+ home value, 35–60 yo, planning interior remodel >$50k or full kitchen/bath renovations. Concentrated in Austin / San Antonio metros, increasingly Spanish-bilingual.
**Lead-source mix:** 55% Google Local Services Ads, 20% referrals, 15% Houzz Pro, 10% Yelp / BBB / website forms
**Competitors watched:** Allen Build Co., Austin Modern Renovations, Hill Country Custom Homes

## D. Functional scope

- **Team size cap:** 8

| Specialist | Function | Priority | Vol/wk | Autonomy | Schedule | Outputs land |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lead Researcher | sales | P0 | 60 | draft | */10 7-19 * * * | JobNimbus contact note; #sales-leads-drafts (Slack) |
| Intake Qualifier | industry | P0 | 60 | draft | */10 7-19 * * * | JobNimbus contact note; #sales-leads-drafts |
| Quote / Estimate Drafter | industry | P0 | 30 | draft | 0 6,12,18 * * * | Drive 'Estimate drafts'; JobNimbus deal attachment |
| Job Scheduler | industry | P0 | 25 | autonomous_rate_limited | 0 7,13 * * 1-5 | #ops-scheduling (Slack); JobNimbus job timeline |
| Subcontractor Coordinator | industry | P0 | 40 | draft | 0 7,11,15 * * 1-5 | #ops-scheduling; Twilio outbound queue (drafts) |
| Review Responder | customer_service | P0 | 12 | draft | */30 7-21 * * * | Birdeye 'Pending review responses' |
| Permit Tracker | industry | P0 | 18 | draft | 0 8 * * 1-5 | #ops-permits; JobNimbus job notes |

## E. Deployment target

- **Target:** dbai_sdk_n8n
- **Fallback:** pure_n8n
- **Hosting:** n8n Cloud + Vercel for approval queue UI
- **UI domain:** agents.northgate.example

## F. Autonomy

- **Global default:** draft
- **Shadow mode:** enabled — 7d
- **HR Director autonomy exception:** ENABLED (recommended)

**Action classes:**
- internal_read: auto
- internal_write: auto
- external_reversible: batch_approve (window 4h)
- external_irreversible: approve_each (expires 24h, on_timeout=reject)
- high_cost: approve_each — tokens>100000, items>50, USD>5

**Approver chain:**
- T1 Jordan Vega (COO) · slack · @jordan
- T2 Sam Park (Ops Lead) · slack · @sam
- T3 Front office · email · frontoffice@northgate.example

**Runtime-failure escalation:**
- Sam Park · sms · +1-512-555-0143
- DevOps oncall · email · oncall@northgate.example

**Hard-blocked actions:** Quote a final price without human review; Charge a customer card; Post on personal social accounts; Edit production JobNimbus jobs without approval
**Do-not-contact:** Anyone on the suppression-list sheet; ceo@bigclient.example (legal hold); Former-employee personal addresses
**Frequency caps:** Never email a prospect more than once every 14 days; Max 2 review-response drafts per reviewer per week
**Holiday rules:** No external sends Sat / Sun; Texas-observed holidays off; No 6am–8am sends in customer's local time

## G. Reporting

- **Daily report:** 07:30 America/Chicago
- **Channels:** slack, email
- **Recipients:** @jordan, @sam, frontoffice@northgate.example
- **Weekly digest:** Mon 08:30
- **Exception channel:** #ops-alerts
- **Format:** smart_brevity

| KPI | Target |
|---|---|
| lead_to_quote_time_hrs | < 24h |
| quote_to_job_rate_pct | > 35% |
| job_margin_pct | > 25% |
| review_response_time_hrs | < 2h |
| qualified_estimates_per_month | >= 30 |
| permit_followup_breach_count | 0 |
| weekend_lead_response_min_p95 | < 60 min |

## H. Integrations / MCPs

| Integration | Purpose | Auth | Owner | MCP server | Rate limits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| jobnimbus | CRM ops, deal stages, contact notes | api_key | client | build | soft 5/sec |
| google_workspace | Gmail + Drive + Calendar reads & drafts | oauth | client | official | Workspace per-user |
| slack | Approval queue + ops channels | oauth | client | official | 1+ per second |
| stripe | Read-only payment lookup for refund triage | api_key | client | official | 100/sec |
| birdeye | Review feed + drafted responses | api_key | client | build | n/a |
| twilio | Outbound SMS drafts to subs (queued, not auto-sent) | api_key | client | community | 1 msg/sec/sender |
| city_of_austin_permits | Scrape permit portal status | service_account | client | build | polite — 1/min |

- **Billing owner:** finance@northgate.example
- **Webhook ingress:** https://hooks.northgate.example/agents

## I. Brand & voice

- **Tone:** warm professional with a Texas-friendly tone
**Voice samples:** Drive 'Voice/Best customer replies'; Birdeye top-15 owner-replied reviews; Sales call transcripts tagged 'voice-pure' in Fireflies
**Operational playbooks:** Notion 'Northgate Operations Handbook v3'; SOP-Estimating-Workbook.pdf; SOP-Subcontractor-Onboarding.pdf
**Hard-rule sources:** Texas RCLA contractor disclosures; Northgate-MSA-template-v3.pdf; Lien-waiver-template.pdf
**Never use:** circle back, leverage, guaranteed, the cheapest
**Signature phrases:** happy to help, y'all, we'll take care of it
**Compliance:** Texas RCLA, GLBA-light (financial info handling)
**Legal review required for:** Any pricing claim above the line-item ranges in playbook, Warranty language, Lien releases

**Hard rules:**
- Never quote a final price without human review.
- Intake must capture sq-ft, scope, ZIP, and photos.
- Pull permits before scheduling work.
- Lien-waiver acknowledged on every payment.
- Spanish-language replies always reviewed by a bilingual team member
- Never disclose subcontractor margins to homeowners


## J. Budget & scale

- **Monthly token budget (USD):** 600
- **Hard cap?:** no
- **Max specialists concurrent:** 8
- **Schedule mode:** business_hours
- **Cost alerts:** warn 75% / hardstop 110%
- **Rollout:** stagger

**Per-agent schedules:**
- lead-researcher: `*/10 7-19 * * *`
- intake-qualifier: `*/10 7-19 * * *`
- quote-estimate-drafter: `0 6,12,18 * * *`
- job-scheduler: `0 7,13 * * 1-5`
- subcontractor-coordinator: `0 7,11,15 * * 1-5`
- review-responder: `*/30 7-21 * * *`
- permit-tracker: `0 8 * * 1-5`

## Open questions

- **[B]** Is the City of Austin permit portal scrape allowed under their ToS? — best guess: Polite, low-volume read-only scraping is generally permitted; legal to confirm before go-live.
- **[I]** Should Spanish-language drafts queue for the same approvers, or a bilingual sub-team? — best guess: Default: bilingual sub-team (Sam + frontoffice) gets first review on Spanish drafts.