Most jobs in this file end at the shop window. This one goes through it. Caitlyn Nails Studio is a private nail room at Unit 3, 41 Kingsmill St, Chermside — one chair, one technician, a short and considered menu, and the promise that the room is booked just for you. That promise is the whole business, and a page of opening hours does not keep it. Something had to hold the diary.
So the subject built an application and hung a website on the front of it. Guests create accounts and sign in; the booking flow carries a service through from the menu — acrylic, BIAB, Gel'X, the signature manicure and pedicure — to a confirmed slot, with the walk-in door left open for anyone who prefers to knock. Behind the login sits an internal system where the studio manages its own services, availability and bookings, with no developer standing between the owner and her own calendar. The desk has recorded that arrangement three times now and still regards it as the point of the exercise.
The exhibit's distinguishing feature is the one that answers back. “Ivy” — the studio's AI concierge — sits in a chat window and does the work a receptionist would: fields questions about the studio, talks a guest through a set, and hands them into the booking flow at the end. Alongside it runs a virtual try-on: the guest uploads a photo of their own hand, picks a shape, a colour and the art, and sees the finish before committing to it. Per the studio's own copy: no guessing, just a calm yes.
“She asked for a website. What she got was a receptionist who never sleeps.”
The construction is the familiar solo stack pushed further than the solo file has taken it before — Next.js and Tailwind on the surface, a Supabase layer holding accounts, services and the diary underneath, with auth and the admin built on top of it rather than bolted beside it. The AI concierge is the newest instrument on the subject's person, and the desk notes it was deployed where it can be checked: in front of paying guests, on a live diary, in a business where a mis-booked slot is an empty chair.
Four things this exhibit has that a brochure site does not: accounts, bookings, an internal system, and something that talks. The investigation regards the combination as the strongest single showing in the file — evidence that the subject builds software, not pages.
The studio is in production at caitlynnails.com.au, taking bookings daily. The desk recommends the reader inspect the premises, and — if the hands are in need — the chair.