Development status: Release Candidate (RC)

Where we are now

This platform was born in the middle of December 2025, with development beginning around 15/12/2025.

It grew quickly in a short space of time. By around 15/02/2026, much of the earlier work on both the front end and the back end had been intentionally scrapped and rewritten so the platform could be rebuilt on stronger foundations.

Around 24/02/2026, we decided to rewrite the front end in React. The front end is the part people see and interact with — a bit like the body of the platform. We made that change to create a cleaner and more flexible user experience built on reusable components, improve responsiveness across devices — especially on mobile — and make the interface easier to improve and maintain as the platform grows.

Around 17/03/2026, we decided to rewrite the back end in Laravel. The back end is the part working behind the scenes — a bit like the brain of the platform. We made that change to give the platform a stronger and more maintainable foundation, with better structure for authentication, validation, background processing, caching, and long-term developer productivity.

As of 12/04/2026, the Laravel back end and React front end are fully connected. Since mid-March we have shipped the standalone Marketplace, Stripe-based Donations and Identity Verification, a volunteering organisation wallet, a complete rebuild of the gamification system, a four-protocol Federation layer (Nexus, Komunitin, Credit Commons, and TimeOverflow), and a build-time SEO pipeline. Translation coverage has grown from 7 to 11 languages, including Arabic with full right-to-left support.

We are also working on a dedicated mobile phone app in the background, which should be available soon.

What's stable and working

Core platform

Member registration, login, two-factor auth (TOTP + WebAuthn), guided onboarding
Time credit wallet — earning, spending, transfers, broker controls, and full transaction history
Multi-tenant architecture — unlimited communities, each with isolated data and custom branding
Exchange workflow — structured service exchange lifecycle with broker approval
Federation — cross-community exchange, shared listings, events, and messaging across connected platforms
Progressive Web App — installable on any device, works offline

Member experience

Service listings — post offers and requests, browse and smart-match listings
Social feed — posts, comments, likes, polls, hashtags, and voice messages
Messaging — direct conversations with read receipts and real-time updates
Events — creating, discovering, RSVPs, and calendar export
Groups — community sub-groups with discussions, roles, and moderation
Group exchanges — bulk community service exchanges
Members directory — browse, filter, and discover people
Connections — follow and connect with community members
Reviews and ratings — build trust through member feedback
Endorsements — peer skill and experience endorsements
Polls — community voting and surveys
Skills browse — explore skill taxonomy and discover expertise
Volunteering — opportunities, shifts, applications, hours logging, plus a volunteer organisation time-credit wallet (top-ups, admin adjustments, and payouts to volunteers in hours)
Job vacancies — full recruitment module with alerts and analytics
Organisations — company and employer profiles with sub-accounts
Goals and impact — personal goals, mentoring, and community impact tracking
Ideation challenges — innovation hub with campaigns, ideas, voting, and outcomes
Achievements and gamification — XP, verification badges, journeys, challenges, streaks, leaderboard, community dashboard, and Nexus Score
Personal insights — individual engagement metrics and personalised recommendations
Marketplace — standalone classifieds module with Stripe Connect payouts, orders, and seller profiles
Donations — one-off and recurring donations via Stripe with organisation dashboards and receipts
Identity verification — optional Stripe Identity flow (document + selfie + name/DOB matching) with a verified-member badge
AI reply suggestions — in-marketplace assistant that drafts responses to listing enquiries

Content and communication

Blog — tenant content management and community news
Resources and knowledge base — structured articles and shared resource library
Help center — documentation hub and FAQ
Newsletter system — email campaigns with A/B testing, smart segments, geo targeting, recurring sends, templates, and full open/click analytics
AI Chat — AI-powered assistant for platform guidance
Custom pages — tenant-managed CMS pages
Legal hub — versioned legal documents with acceptance gates and audit trail

Platform and security

Enterprise security — CSRF, rate limiting, TOTP 2FA, WebAuthn passkeys, CSP nonces, CORS allowlist, and Form Request validation
GDPR compliance — data requests, consent management, breach tracking, and audit log
Fraud and abuse detection — automated suspicious activity alerts and content moderation
WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility — targeted standard; the platform is currently partially conformant while audits continue
11 languages — English, Irish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Polish, Japanese, and Arabic (with full RTL support)
Admin panel — tenant configuration, user management, analytics, and moderation
Algorithm controls — live health dashboard and tuning for all ranking systems
Dark mode and mobile-responsive UI
SEO at build time — 19+ public pages pre-rendered with Playwright, structured data, sitemaps, and Prerender.io fallback for dynamic routes
Federation — four protocol adapters live: Nexus (native), Komunitin (all 15 endpoints), Credit Commons (11 endpoints, CEN-compatible mutual credit), and TimeOverflow; two-way sync across 9 entity types, event-driven push, and reputation portability
Payments layer — Stripe for subscriptions, donations, marketplace (Connect), and identity verification, with idempotent webhook handling

What may still be rough

Federation — all protocol endpoints are live and two-way integration-tested, but real-world edge cases between heterogeneous partner platforms still surface occasionally
AI Chat assistant — depends on external AI providers; response quality varies by configuration
Nexus Score breakdown — newly launched; scoring weights may be adjusted as usage data grows
Smart feed ranking — EdgeRank algorithm is live but cold-start behaviour for new members is still being tuned
Push notifications (mobile) — may have delivery delays on some devices or browsers
Non-English translations — AI-generated and not yet reviewed by native speakers

How we catch bugs

We use a multi-layer approach to catch and fix issues quickly:

• Automated tests — 500+ PHP unit/integration tests (including deep money-flow, webhook, and federation coverage) and React component tests run on every commit
• Sentry error tracking — exceptions on both frontend and backend are captured in real time
• Cloudflare analytics — traffic anomalies and error spikes are monitored continuously
• Manual QA — core user journeys are tested across multiple tenant configurations before each deployment
• Community testing — real members across multiple active communities help us surface edge cases in production

How to help

Report a bug

Found something broken? Please open an issue on GitHub — it's the fastest way to get a fix in front of us. Include what you were doing, what you expected, and what actually happened.

Open an issue on GitHub

Bring your community onto NEXUS

If you run a timebank or community network and want to join the platform, we'd love to work with you. Reach out via GitHub Discussions or the contact page — we support communities of all sizes.

Security disclosure

If you discover a security vulnerability, please do not open a public issue. Instead, contact us confidentially at jasper@hour-timebank.ie. We will respond within 72 hours and work with you on responsible disclosure.