Ethan McNamara

Relay

Nothing lost along the way.

Project files, organised around the work, using the storage your team already has.

Role
Designed and built, start to finish
Status
Internal tool
Area
Ownership
56 seconds · Sound effects · English captions

A connection.
Not another copy.

Give this file a place in the project, then take provider access away and see what a project link cannot do.

01 / Original in Google DriveMilestone
review.pdfThe document keeps its original home.
02 / Signal project recordNot connectedReady to store the title, provider reference and project context.
Original Google DriveOpen file Provider access availableSignal stores References

The file is in Google Drive. No project reference yet.

Inspect the state and rules

Sharing a reference never grants provider permission.

{
  "original": {
    "id": "drive:milestone-review",
    "title": "Milestone review.pdf",
    "provider": "Google Drive",
    "project": "Client delivery"
  },
  "reference": null,
  "projectAccess": true,
  "providerAccess": true,
  "copied": false
}

The problem

Project files end up copied into another account. The team loses a single source of truth, and the product inherits storage it never needed to own.

The idea

Store the relationship between a file and the work, not another copy of the file. The original stays where the team already keeps it.

How it is built

A project record holds the title, the provider reference and the project context. The bytes stay in the customer’s Drive.

Read the diagram as text

A project editor adds a file. If workspace and Drive access both allow it, the customer’s Google Drive stores the original. Once the file is fully saved, the project file list links it. Unavailable access, or an interrupted upload, leaves the attachment incomplete with a route to reconnect or retry.

AllowedConfirmedAccess unavailableInterruptedProject editorAdds a fileWorkspace and Driveaccess allowed?Customer Google DriveStores the originalFile fullysaved?Project file listOriginal file linkedReconnect or retryAttachment incomplete

Diamonds are decisions. Indigo marks the path that matters. Scroll across to see all of it.

Scope

Relay is a developed internal tool. The example on this page is a local reference model with illustrative data: it rehearses permissions rather than connecting to storage. A project reference grants no Drive permission — workspace access and provider access must both allow an operation.