North — Roadmap to September 2026
Status: Planned · Author: Christophe + Claude · Date: 2026-07-15 · Owner: Christophe (CTO) with Ilan (CEO) / Jeremy (Design)
Context — the pivot
Stop selling North as a standalone product. Sell Claude Cowork + North intelligence on top.
Decided at the daily stand-up (2026-07-15). Pushing North as a standalone invites a head-to-head with Harvey and the rest of the legal-AI field. Instead: we install Claude Cowork — the surface lawyers already trust — and layer North's intelligence (corpus with citations, matters, deal folders, deterministic legal tools, 160 methodologies, and the behavioural briefing) on top of it. Consulting motion: "we deploy Claude + North for you", then upsell to the full North OS product where the proactive engine (mail cards, meetings, automations, memory mining) lives — that engine is non-portable by construction (Cowork can't be woken up), which is exactly why the full product remains the destination.
September 1 is a conversation gate, not a deployment gate. The goal is to start talking to clients — webinars, brochures, first meetings — and learn where it blocks. Being ready to sell + deploy + train on Sept 1 is not realistic; being ready to have the first real conversations is.
Claude Cowork is the entry point — the least-risky rung between plain chat and Claude Code. Claude Code is still too technical and anxiety-inducing for lawyers today; if Codex / Claude Code goes mainstream, we switch, but we don't start there.
Node I = HSE. HSE tests on North OS (the core app) now; later they also get the Claude Cowork version. The marketing lane hunts Nodes II / III.
The four lanes (from the stand-up)
- Tech — plug North's intelligence into Claude Cowork now, and Claude Code later.
- Formation creation — build training for lawyers (on Cowork) and training on North's own intelligence layer.
- People — find / hire / partner the humans who deliver deployment and training (deployer / FDE + trainers, e.g. Catherine).
- Acquisition & marketing — brochure, comparison site, webinars, lead-gen to find Node II / Node III.
The September 1 gate
"Ready to start conversations" concretely requires all four:
- ☐ Packaged North-in-Cowork — the plugin + MCP server working end-to-end, demoable to a firm.
- ☐ Brochure + comparison site live — sales collateral centralized on a subdomain.
- ☐ Training draft ready — at least the Claude Cowork base curriculum drafted (the North layer can follow).
- ☐ First conversations booked — actual webinars / meetings with candidate Node II firms on the calendar.
Initiative map (7 initiatives)
Four lanes from the stand-up, plus a thin coordination initiative, plus the two North-OS product initiatives Christophe added: the core app (kept, lower priority — where the existing NOS-* backlog lives) and the Cowork-client adaptations (a distinct lane for changing North OS itself so Cowork-only clients get a restricted interface with no direct chat).
| # | Initiative | Priority | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🔌 Product — North in Claude Cowork | P0 | The tech lane. Ship North's intelligence into Cowork (and keep a Claude Code track ready). |
| 2 | 🖥️ North OS — Cowork-client adaptations | P0 | Change North OS itself for Cowork-only clients: hide / limit the direct chat, restrict the interface, client-tier gating. |
| 3 | 🎓 Formation | P1 | Two curricula: Cowork-for-lawyers, and North-intelligence-on-top. |
| 4 | 👥 People | P1 | Deployer / FDE hire + trainer network. |
| 5 | 📣 Acquisition & Marketing | P1 | Brochure, comparison site, webinars, Node II/III pipeline. |
| 6 | 🧭 GTM Coordination | P2 | The Sept-1 launch gate + competitive watch. |
| 7 | 📦 North OS — core app (Node I / HSE) | P2 (lower) | The existing NOS-* build. Kept, deprioritized. Existing "North OS classic" tasks get moved in here and re-sorted into lanes 1/2 where they belong. |
Initiative 1 — 🔌 Product: North in Claude Cowork
Discipline: the tech epics come only from the existing repo plans — 2026-07-09-cowork-plugin.html (design + plan) and its related mcp-federation (NOS-120) / firm-skills specs. Part is already implemented. Nothing invented.
Project: North Cowork Plugin + first-party MCP server
One plugin, one MCP server, 23 namespaced north__* tools, OAuth (Better Auth PKCE, user-bound), dynamic BASE_PROMPT briefing (never a clear file), firm skills via north__get_skill, non-destructive writes only. Epics mirror the plan's phases C0–C7 (each independently mergeable; C0 is a GO/NO-GO gate; security review Opus + Codex before merge on C2/C3/C6):
| Epic | Ships | Depends | Effort |
|---|---|---|---|
| C0 — Spike GO/NO-GO | Dissect anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins (Legal plugin); answer open questions 1/2/4; validate Cowork × remote-MCP + OAuth. Note in docs/superpowers/notes/. | — | S |
| C1 — mcp-server skeleton | apps/mcp-server (Hono + MCP SDK, Streamable HTTP, app_role role-probe, provisional bearer, 1 tool north__matter_search). = NOS-120 B1. | C0 GO | M |
| C2 — OAuth (amended) | Better Auth OAuth provider (RFC 8414 + PKCE + refresh + revoke, user-bound); real Cowork enrolment. | C1 | L |
| C3 — Read catalogue | The 18 read tools + per-tool disciplines in descriptions + Redis rate-limit + audit ledger. = NOS-120 B2 extended. | C1 | L |
| C4 — Briefing + skills | north__briefing + BASE_PROMPT distillate (agent-runtime/src/cowork/briefing.ts + presence tests) + north__get_skill (dynamic firm skills). | C3 | M |
| C5 — Plugin bundle + pilot | plugins/north-cowork/: manifest + bootstrap + curated generic skills + 5 slash commands + 3 sub-agents; pilot install at 1 client-firm user. | C2, C4 | M |
| C6 — Writes-lite | The 5 write tools + server-side allowlist + audit (note, draft-never-send, time entry, trackers). | C3 | M |
| C7 — E2E + evals | Scripted MCP client: 2-org RLS isolation, user walls, groundedness golden-set subset via the MCP path, bootstrap-obedience measurement. | C4, C5, C6 | M |
Ship order: C0 → C1 → (C2 ∥ C3) → C4 → C5 ∥ C6 → C7. Statuses seeded from the current build state (Christophe: "mostly done, 2–3 days left").
Project: Desktop app → Cowork bridge
- Keep the meeting recorder in the North desktop app; hide the chat.
- At meeting-end, suggest a pre-built prompt to copy-paste into Cowork for the action items.
- No one-click deep link into Cowork — not feasible on Anthropic's side yet (documented constraint, not our work).
Project: Claude Code track (explore-only)
Keep a Claude Code path ready so we can switch if Codex / CC becomes mainstream for lawyers. No build commitment for September.
Project: Teams / Enterprise account setup
Stand up a fresh Claude account (new email) to test the Teams / enterprise setup — the old Forma account was banned without explanation and fully refunded. Goal: validate the org/Teams onboarding path.
Initiative 2 — 🖥️ North OS — Cowork-client adaptations
Changes to North OS itself so it serves Cowork-only clients. These clients won't get a chat directly in North — the intelligence reaches them through Cowork.
- Restrict the client interface — hide / disable the direct chat surface for Cowork-tier clients.
- Client-tier gating — a config/flag distinguishing "full North OS" (HSE / Node I) from "Cowork-client" access.
- Limited surface — what a Cowork client can and cannot see/do inside North OS (read paths for their data, no proactive surface).
(Task-level breakdown deferred until the C0 spike settles what the client actually touches.)
Initiative 3 — 🎓 Formation
- Project: Claude Cowork training for lawyers — the base curriculum; can start now, before North packaging lands. Draft with Catherine as co-builder if needed.
- Project: North-intelligence training — the layer on top: using North's skills / tools / briefing inside Cowork. Slots in once packaging is ready.
- Project: Materials & delivery — curriculum, exercises, on-site vs webinar format, the Paris beta-cabinet one-week on-site test.
Initiative 4 — 👥 People
- Project: Deployer / FDE hire — the forward-deployed engineer who installs + runs the MSO nodes.
- Project: Trainer network — find / partner people to deliver formation (Catherine as first candidate). Build-vs-hire decision.
- Project: Roles & comp — define each role and when we need it relative to Node II.
Initiative 5 — 📣 Acquisition & Marketing
- Project: Sales brochure — beyond the site: what we bring, what it concretely looks like.
- Project: North vs Claude comparison site — move the comparison links onto a subdomain so they centralize in HQ in one click (repo already has
docs/superpowers/north-vs-claude.htmlas the seed). - Project: Webinars & lead-gen — Sept target: webinars + conversations to see where it blocks.
- Project: Node II/III prospecting — identify + approach candidate firms beyond HSE.
Initiative 6 — 🧭 GTM Coordination
- Project: September launch gate — the four-must-have tracker above; the cross-lane milestone.
- Project: Competitive watch — Spark (OpenAI) has surpassed Claude on legal; track it + Harvey. Feeds product + marketing.
Initiative 7 — 📦 North OS — core app (Node I / HSE)
The existing North OS product build — mail intelligence, meetings, evals, AWS infra, the whole NOS-* backlog. Kept but deprioritized relative to the Cowork pivot. HSE runs on this today.
Starting state (verified 2026-07-15): there is no "North OS classic" initiative — all 116 NOS issues are bare (no project, no initiative), grouped only by parent epics. This initiative absorbs them: each parent epic (NOS-38 eval coverage, NOS-43 mail-intel RAG, NOS-51 analytics, NOS-57 meetings, NOS-64 diligence, NOS-70 revision awareness, NOS-79 AWS infra, NOS-88 share hardening, NOS-94 agent sandbox, NOS-99 matter ingestion, NOS-104 learning loop, NOS-109 memory, NOS-114 voice-action, NOS-76 macOS release, plus the shipped Gate/Outlook/Word set) becomes a Linear project under this initiative, carrying its child issues.
Moved to Initiative 1 instead: the Cowork-adjacent epics — NOS-120 (MCP federation) with its children NOS-121 (MCP client) / NOS-122 (North MCP server), and NOS-126 (Cowork importer feasibility) — since they are the pre-existing seed of the Cowork tech lane.
How this gets built in Linear
- Target org: North / Transformative (not cosmictacos). Requires that org's API key — added by Christophe to
.env.localasNORTH_LINEAR_API_KEY. - Create the 7 initiatives with the priorities above.
- Create the projects listed under each initiative.
- Under Initiative 1's plugin project, create epics C0–C7 exactly as the repo plan defines them (nothing invented), seeded with current status.
- Create the September 1 milestone gating initiatives 1 / 3 / 5 on the four must-haves.
- Move existing "North OS classic" tasks into Initiative 7 and re-sort Cowork-related ones into 1 / 2.
Verification
- All 7 initiatives + their projects exist in the North Linear org with correct priorities.
- Initiative 1's plugin project holds exactly epics C0–C7, each matching the repo plan's DoD.
- No task remains stranded in the old "North OS classic" initiative — every one moved to its correct lane.
- The September 1 milestone lists the four must-haves and gates initiatives 1 / 3 / 5.