# Flicker — Home & Car Maintenance

> *Part of the Circuit Forge LLC "AI for the tasks you hate most" suite.*

**Status:** Backlog — not yet started. Peregrine must prove the model first.

## What it does

Flicker manages ongoing home and vehicle maintenance: service scheduling, maintenance history tracking, recall monitoring, warranty tracking, and finding trusted local providers before something breaks.

The Northern Flicker is a woodpecker that works on the structures it inhabits — literally a home maintenance bird. "Flicker" also captures what the app does: it surfaces a reminder before you've forgotten, and before the problem becomes expensive.

## Why it's hard

Maintenance is hard because:
- It's invisible until it fails: most people don't track what was done or when
- Recalls are your responsibility to discover — NHTSA notifies dealers, not owners
- Warranties have time and mileage limits that are easy to miss
- Finding trusted providers (mechanic, HVAC, plumber) requires social network or luck

## Core pipeline

```
Inventory home systems + vehicles (age, model, service history)
→ Generate maintenance schedule (HVAC filters, oil changes, inspections)
→ Monitor recalls (NHTSA VIN lookup, CPSC product database)
→ Track warranty expiry dates → Alert before coverage lapses
→ Schedule service → Track provider history + rate reliability
```

## Key differentiators vs. Peregrine

- Proactive vs. reactive: surface issues before failure, not after
- VIN-based recall monitoring: NHTSA API, weekly check per registered vehicle
- Maintenance schedule generation: manufacturer specs + actual usage patterns
- Provider reputation tracking: same provider across multiple jobs over years

## Product code (license key)

`CFG-FLKR-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX`

## Tech notes

- Shared `circuitforge-core` scaffold
- NHTSA Recalls API: `api.nhtsa.gov/recalls/recallsByVehicle`
- CPSC product recall database
- Home system inventory: structured YAML (age, model, serial, last service)
- Maintenance schedule templates: per-system type with configurable intervals
- Vision module: scan appliance labels, VIN stickers, oil change stickers