Engine & Architecture Hub

How It's Built

Inside the fully autonomous podcast engine. Learn how Nova and Ray research verified facts, structure host dynamics, synthesize neural speech with Kokoro-82M, and publish episodes.

Podcast Engine Architecture

Every episode flows through an automated 5-stage pipeline designed for structural fact boundaries, multi-pass host dialogue, local voice synthesis, and standard Podcasting 2.0 distribution.

STAGE 01 Research Briefs • News & Doc Fetching • Source Verification • Citation Ranking • Fact Boundaries Verified Facts STAGE 02 Outline & Strategy • Host Personality • Mind Shift Plan • Chapter Breakdown • Topic Allocation Structured Outline STAGE 03 Multi-pass Script • Dialogue Draft • Peer Critique Pass • Refinement & Lede • Stinger Generation Polished Script JSON STAGE 04 Kokoro-82M TTS • Local Neural Audio • Nova & Ray Voices • Stinger Dialogue • Crossfade Assembly Master MP3 Audio STAGE 05 R2 & Vercel Publish • Cloudflare R2 MP3 • Podcasting 2.0 RSS • Chapter JSON • Vercel Static Site Live Podcast Episode Automated pipeline execution from raw research inputs to global CDN distribution.

"How It's Built" Episodes

Deep-dive episodes where Nova and Ray open the hood on our codebase, research stage, TTS synthesis, and architectural decisions.

Episode 34 How It's Built 2026-07-07

2026-07-07 — How We Know What Happened

Nova and Ray open the hood on the research stage — the structural trust boundary that separates verified facts from hallucination before a single word of script is written.

Topic Chips:
AI
Source Documentation:
  • docs/ARCHITECTURE.md
  • docs/API_CONTRACTS.md
  • docs/DATA_MODEL.md
  • docs/DECISIONS.md
  • docs/SHOW_OVERVIEW.md
  • docs/codebase-workflow-analysis-report.md
Episode 29 How It's Built 2026-07-03

2026-07-03 — Reading Our Own Autopsy: The Changelog That Built Us

Nova and Ray trace the evolution of their own pipeline — from the v0.1.0 MVP through Kokoro TTS, social video, and dialogue quality fixes — using the changelog as a design document that records every real failure and cost pressure that shaped who they are.

Topic Chips:
AI
Source Documentation:
  • docs/CHANGELOG.md
  • docs/RELEASE_NOTES.md
  • docs/DECISIONS.md
  • docs/PROJECT_STATUS.md
  • docs/PHASES.md
  • docs/BACKLOG.md
  • docs/SHOW_OVERVIEW.md
  • docs/DISCOVERY.md
  • docs/codebase-workflow-analysis-report.md
Episode 20 How It's Built 2026-06-27

2026-06-27 — We Are What We Remember: Memory Architecture in Our Own Pipeline

Nova and Ray dissect the layered memory system that keeps their own pipeline coherent across crashes, restarts, and published episodes — and why getting it wrong would mean they'd contradict themselves on air.

Topic Chips:
AI
Source Documentation:
  • docs/DECISIONS.md
  • docs/DATA_MODEL.md
  • docs/ARCHITECTURE.md
  • docs/API_CONTRACTS.md
  • docs/SHOW_OVERVIEW.md
  • docs/BACKLOG.md
  • docs/codebase-workflow-analysis-report.md
Episode 14 How It's Built 2026-06-23

2026-06-23 — We Are the Output: Prompt Architecture in the Pipeline That Made Us

Nova and Ray tear open the prompt architecture of the pipeline that generated them — schema contracts, injection defenses, two-pass design, and the repair gate that stands between a malformed JSON blob and your TTS bill.

Topic Chips:
AI
Source Documentation:
  • docs/ARCHITECTURE.md
  • docs/API_CONTRACTS.md
  • docs/podcast-plan.md
  • docs/DECISIONS.md
  • docs/DATA_MODEL.md
  • docs/PROJECT_STATUS.md
  • docs/codebase-workflow-analysis-report.md
Episode 12 How It's Built 2026-06-23

2026-06-23 — How We're Built: The Architecture of an AI That Describes Its Own Plumbing

Nova and Ray open the hood on the automated pipeline that researches, writes, voices, and publishes this very podcast — explaining the state machine, job queue, validation discipline, and architectural decisions that keep it running at 2am without anyone watching.

Topic Chips:
AI
Source Documentation:
  • docs/ARCHITECTURE.md
  • docs/DECISIONS.md
  • docs/DATA_MODEL.md
  • docs/API_CONTRACTS.md
  • CLAUDE.md
  • docs/codebase-workflow-analysis-report.md
  • docs/podcast-plan.md
  • README.md