Project direction
What Mishkan V2 has built, what it has taken out, and what does not move.
Updated: 2026-08-23
Mishkan V2 started on 27 April 2026. This page is its honest account: what shipped, in what order, and why — including the U-turns, which are the instructive part.
The timeline is not written from memory. Each phase matches a run of database migrations, and every migration in this project carries a header explaining the decision behind it. A direction page that tidied up the route would be worth nothing.
- 36
- database migrations
- 4 101
- places in the directory
- 50
- cities in the feed filter
- 3
- apps: iOS, Android, Mac
What does not move
Four decisions have survived every rewrite. They are the actual direction; the rest is implementation.
מ is earned, never sold
One Mem a day, from the moment an account is verified. There is nothing to buy in Mishkan, and no way to convert money into standing. A currency you can purchase would rank the community by wallet within a month.
No strangers, no algorithm
You are reached by people you already talk to, by whoever you gave your PIN to, and by anyone answering something you published. The feed is filtered by language and city, not by what keeps you scrolling.
Speaking to everyone has to cost something
Reading, and writing to people you know, ask for nothing. Publishing to the whole community asks for a verified mezuzah and two Mem a post. Not to make money — the Mem goes back into the community — but so a voice that reaches everyone is a commitment rather than a free megaphone.
Every seven years, back to zero
At the end of the sabbatical year, every balance returns to zero for everyone at the same instant. It is the real date of the Hebrew calendar, not a rolling per-account anniversary — which is what makes it a shared event instead of a birthday.
How it went
Six phases, from the first schema to today.
April 2026
The foundation
An account, messages, and the plumbing that everything since has rested on.
- Accounts, profiles, direct messaging, moderation.
- Email and password sign-in, alongside Apple and Google.
- Every timestamp moved to TIMESTAMPTZ — timezone ambiguity is not a bug you find early.
- Pro accounts and subscriptions, bound to a single account so a paid plan could not be moved between logins.
May – June 2026
The pivot
The project cut itself back to the bone, then rebuilt on two new pillars.
- An AI matcher — free-text intentions, embedded and paired by a model — was built in May and deleted in June.
- One migration removed the feed, the map, Pro accounts and subscriptions, moderation, and the matcher: everything but messaging and the profile.
- מ arrived, with the ledger it is derived from. A balance is never stored — it is computed from days elapsed, received and sent, so it cannot drift.
- The PIN arrived: eight characters, shareable, the only way to reach someone new.
- Verification levels and an admin space.
July 2026
The feed comes back, differently
Rebuilt from scratch, with the rules the first one lacked.
- Two lanes: a visual feed swiped full-screen, and a text feed.
- Ordering is random with a strong bias toward fresh posts — deliberately not an engagement score.
- Multi-media posts, YouTube posts that cost no storage, and Mem sent to a post's author.
- Business sub-accounts: up to 26 alternate identities, with the Mem always staying on the owner's account.
- Messaging became group-capable: groups, per-person read receipts, media, links, polls, and Mem receipts inside the thread.
August 2026
Trust, made explicit
Who may do what stopped being implicit and became a ladder anyone can read.
- Four verification levels, from a verified email to formal identity — and a mezuzah photo, reviewed by hand, as the step that unlocks publishing.
- Blocking came back, symmetrical: neither side sees the other any more.
- Signing in with Apple or Google now grants level 1 immediately — the provider has already proved the address.
- Groups gained their own feed, an entry questionnaire, and the right to apply again after a refusal.
- Language and city filters on the feed: 3 languages, 50 cities.
- Friends were removed. The contact list IS the conversation list — you reach someone new by PIN, and everything after picks from the conversations you already have.
August 2026
Anchored in the real world
The app stopped being only about what happens inside it.
- The businessjuif directory — 4 101 places — shipped inside the apps, and became living: members correct, recommend, photograph, claim and add records.
- Shmita was encoded: the release of Mem at the very end of the sabbatical year, at sunset on 29 Elul, the real date and no other.
- An admin dashboard answering four questions: how many people, how many come back, what they do, what just happened.
- A notification centre, so an answer survives the banner that announced it.
August 2026
A second door
Mishkan opened to the outside — under the same rules as the inside.
- API keys, reserved to formally verified accounts. A key acts in its owner's name and obeys every rule they obey: level, Mem cost, blocks.
- A public API reference, in three languages.
- A notification service: an integration can warn its own owner — out of credit, expired token — and nobody else.
What was taken out
Deleting is part of the direction. Four features were built, shipped, and removed.
The AI intentions matcher
Free-text statements of who you wanted to meet, embedded and paired by a model. Built on 18 May, deleted on 5 June — eighteen days: it answered a question nobody was asking, and it made the app about the algorithm rather than about the people.
Pro accounts and subscriptions
A paid tier makes standing purchasable, which is the exact opposite of a currency you can only earn. Business sub-accounts replaced it six weeks later — an identity, not a rank, and free.
The map
Removed with the pivot. What it was reaching for came back eleven weeks later, and much better: a directory of 4 101 real places, kept up to date by the people who go there.
Friends
A friendship graph is a second list to keep in agreement with the conversation list, and it asks people to accept a request before saying hello. The conversation IS the consent: you open one with a PIN, and that is the whole relationship.
Where it goes
Three things are underway.
- Messaging: the backend is WhatsApp-class already — groups, receipts, media, polls, channels with paid entry. The clients have not caught up with it yet, and that is the current work.
- The directory: the community layer exists and works. What it needs now is people using it, and the corrections flowing back into the collection rather than staying in our database.
- The API: publishing and notifications are open. Reading a member's own data from outside is the obvious next scope.
This is direction, not a promise of dates. What is written above under « How it went » shipped; what is written here has not.