North Star Agent — Web App

Find organizations that have already paid to measure their pain. The strongest demand signal for what to build.

What it does

You describe a problem space. The app:

1. Generates 30-50 targeted search queries using Claude — dynamically, based on your input
2. Runs all queries through Serper (Google search API), deduplicates URLs
3. Screens each page with Claude Haiku looking for the "Madrid Pattern" — evidence someone paid to quantify their losses
4. Presents findings as product intelligence — what the pain is, who measured it, what it implies you should build

Cost per run: ~$1-2. Time: ~5-15 minutes.

Architecture

The pipeline is split into three API routes so each stays under Vercel's function timeout (works on Hobby plan):

/api/generate    →  Claude generates queries from your input (~3s)
/api/search      →  Serper runs batches of 15 queries (~10s each)
/api/screen      →  Haiku screens batches of 8 URLs (~20s each)

The frontend orchestrates these in sequence, batching as needed, showing progress and streaming findings as they arrive.

Deploy to Vercel

1. Push to GitHub

cd north-star-web
git init
git add .
git commit -m "North Star Agent v1"
git remote add origin https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/north-star-agent.git
git push -u origin main

2. Deploy on Vercel

• Go to vercel.com → "Add New Project"
• Import your GitHub repo
• Add Environment Variables:
  • SERPER_API_KEY — get at serper.dev (free: 2,500 searches)
  • ANTHROPIC_API_KEY — get at console.anthropic.com
• Click Deploy

Works on Vercel Hobby (free) plan — no Pro required.

Run locally

cp .env.local.example .env.local
# Edit .env.local with your API keys

npm install
npm run dev
# Open http://localhost:3000

Files

app/
  page.tsx              — Main UI (input, progress, result cards)
  layout.tsx            — HTML shell, fonts
  globals.css           — Design tokens
  api/
    generate/route.ts   — Step 1: query generation
    search/route.ts     — Step 2: Serper search (batched)
    screen/route.ts     — Step 3: Haiku screening (batched)
lib/
  pipeline.ts           — All pipeline logic (shared by API routes)

The principle

When someone pays to measure their pain, they have done your product discovery for you. Find those studies. The spec is already written.