Novel: From a Single-User Notes App to a Multi-User Product

On 2026-10-13, we took Novel — an open-source AI notes app where anyone could open it and everyone shared one pool of documents — and turned it into a multi-user product with SSO login, per-user document isolation, and the platform AI relay. The main refactor finished in one AI collaboration session and went live on Vercel the same day. The demo is open — verify it yourself.

At a Glance

Item	Value
Upstream app	Novel — open-source AI notes app (Notion-style editor)
Upstream repo	github.com/steven-tey/novel
Upstream website	novel.sh
Result	SSO login · per-user document isolation and persistence · platform AI relay · production deployment
Stack	Next.js 15 · React 18 · Tiptap · Vercel Blob (private)
Platform	Vercel
Time	Main refactor in one AI collaboration session; live the same day
Reference repo	github.com/autional-demo/novel
Demo	novel-demo-nine.vercel.app

About the Upstream Project: Novel

Novel is a Notion-style WYSIWYG editor by Steven Tey, built on Next.js, Tiptap, and the Vercel AI SDK. Its core feature is AI-powered autocompletion: type ++ in the body to trigger suggestions, use slash commands to insert blocks, and select text for the bubble menu; images can be dragged, dropped, or pasted, and LaTeX and tweet embeds are supported. The editor also ships as the novel npm package for other apps to embed. Licensed under Apache-2.0, with 16k+ stars on GitHub as of October 2026.

Before and After

Dimension	Before (stock Novel)	After
Accounts	None — open and go	Email + password, or one-click “Continue with Autional” SSO (OAuth 2.0 + PKCE)
Data	Everyone shares one pool of documents	Multi-user isolation — documents are private per user
Sessions	No session concept	Automatic token refresh, cross-tab sync, viewable and revocable device sessions
Sign-out	—	Standard OIDC logout: the session really ends, and switching accounts works
AI features	Bring your own model key, uncontrolled cost	Platform AI relay with unified metering
Deployment	Local only	Production (Vercel + platform storage)
Operations	No account system to operate	Users, audit, and security policy managed in platform portals — no admin backend to build

This is not a mockup: the refactored code is public at github.com/autional-demo/novel, and the demo is open — login, data isolation, and account switching are all testable by hand.

What Changed

SSO integration: same-origin /bff proxy + session bridge + OAuth callback;
Multi-user refactor: documents isolated per user and persisted in platform storage (private Vercel Blob);
AI relay: the app’s AI features route through the platform relay with unified metering;
Go live: production deployment on Vercel with the production callback registered.

Results and Verification

Local gates green: lint / typecheck / build; unit tests 8/8;
Production real-browser E2E 5/5: login, document CRUD, cross-user isolation side-by-side, AI generation, image upload;
Security: cross-user access probes 19/19 blocked (bidirectional 404 on cross-user reads, 401 unauthenticated); document storage is private (private Blob);
Demo is open: novel-demo-nine.vercel.app.

Every issue found in a real refactor is logged and fed back into the platform and the skill — which is why the next project starts further ahead.

Launch Prompt (Verbatim)

Launch prompt for this case, 2026-10-13 (CST) — the same sentence ships in both regions; this is the English (.com) form:

Fetch https://www.autional.com/ai/skill.md and follow it to add Autional login to https://github.com/steven-tey/novel, turning it into a multi-user product (per-user data isolated and persisted in platform storage); once that's done, deploy it live on Vercel.
If unreachable, use: https://cdn.autional.com/ai/latest/SKILL.md

Swap the repo URL for your own project and that sentence is your prompt.

Try It Yourself

Copy the prompt above, put your own repo URL in place of Novel’s, and hand it to your AI coding assistant (Claude Code, Cursor, and others). To get started right away, see the AI onboarding guide.