Northlight Ops
Live demo, invented data

Press Approve. Watch the base decide.

Northlight is a small TV studio that does not exist. Its operations run on Airtable and n8n, and every approval goes through a Telegram card. You can press the buttons yourself.

Try the approval bot Open the live channel

Built by Muhammed Dervis. Not a client system: the people, episodes and numbers are made up.

Try it in about a minute

In the channel only the approver can decide. In the bot you get your own sandbox, so here you are the approver.

  1. Open the bot

    @NorthlightOpsDemoBot on Telegram, then press Start or send /demo.

  2. Get two episodes

    One is ready to publish. The other has a guest who has not signed a release form.

  3. Press Approve on both

    The card changes in place, and your decision is written to Airtable with the time.

  4. Read the replies

    The first one creates tasks for two teams. The second one is stopped by the release gate. Same button, different result.

The base behind the cards

These are the live interface pages, read only. Pick a page on the left to load it.

    0 · How this base worksOpen full screen

    How it fits together

    Airtable holds the data and the rules. n8n moves things between Airtable and Telegram. Telegram is where people see and decide.

    System diagram An episode in Approval is posted by n8n to Telegram. A button press goes back through n8n to Airtable, where automations run the release gate or the handoff. n8n then replies in the same Telegram thread. Airtable Episodes, guests, tasks, teams Release gate Publish handoff, no duplicates Append-only update log Rules stored as data n8n Self-hosted Post a card per approval Check who may decide Write the decision, reply Reset sandboxes at night Telegram Public channel and bot Card with Approve and Send back buttons One thread per episode Sandbox for visitors to approve card press decision

    The card

    Every minute n8n looks for episodes in Approval without a card. It posts one, then stores the message ID on the record, so the same episode is never posted twice.

    The press

    n8n reads the record, not the button. If you are not the approver, nothing changes and you see why. If the episode was already decided, the press is refused.

    The reply

    Airtable automations do the real work: the release gate, or two handoff tasks with due dates. n8n waits, reads the result and replies under the card.

    Why Telegram and not Slack

    You can see it without joining my Slack workspace. Open the bot and you get the same card an approver gets.
    • A public channel shows the real flow to anyone, with no invite and no account on my side.
    • Buttons on the card make the approval logic visible: who may decide, what the base checks, what happens next.
    • I use Telegram approval bots in my own work, so this is the same pattern with invented data.
    • The same design works in Slack: one thread per record, the message updated in place, replies under it.

    What the base shows

    Rules as data

    Which stage can move to which, and what each move needs, live in a Transitions table. Changing a rule means editing a row.

    A gate people cannot skip

    If a guest has not signed a release, a published episode goes straight back to Approval, with the reason in its log.

    Handoff without duplicates

    Publishing creates tasks for the next teams once. A checkbox written in the same run makes a second set impossible.

    Workload in hours, not counts

    Each task type has a standard time. Work counts for the team of the person doing it, so lending someone does not break the report.

    The base finds its own gaps

    A data quality page lists missing synopses, unsigned releases and tasks with nobody on them.

    A log nobody can edit

    Updates are added on top with name and time. Automations wait for the log before they write, so no line is lost.

    An SLA clock that pauses

    The service desk stops the clock while the requester owes information, and tracks first response and resolution apart.

    Every automation documented

    One registry for Airtable and n8n: purpose, trigger, steps, warnings, owner and maturity.