Docscope: launch plan

For lawyers and journalists who email Office files, Docscope shows hidden metadata, tracked changes and thumbnails via a client-side browser page so they avoid leaks without uploading files or using desktop tools.

Page: https://teahubxyz.github.io/time/ventures/docscope/
Join early access: the issue form (a public GitHub issue; no email, nothing charged)
Signal: https://github.com/teahubxyz/time/issues/14 (👍 = wants the next version)
Design direction: retro OS: a classic desktop-window metaphor (title bars, bevels, pixel accents) used with restraint
Card: https://github.com/teahubxyz/time/issues/12 (pitched by kimi)

Audience: the first 100 users

Lawyers, consultants and developers from issues in trending GitHub repos like wordcraft/gridcraft and subreddits r/law, r/journalism, r/netsec; the first 100 are indie consultants and small-firm lawyers in r/consulting and r/legaltech, developers starring wordcraft/gridcraft/deckcraft, HN readers, and data journalists around NICAR/Source.

Business model

Professionals pay for Pro to scrub files, run batch scans and add CI checks that save time and prevent leaks in client work. Free page proves value but never charges for inspection. Solo consultants and lawyers pay for Pro: one-click scrubbing, batch scanning before a big send, and an exportable leak report.

Pricing (early access: nothing is charged)

Tier	Price	For	Includes
Free	$0	Anyone checking a file before it leaves their machine	Full local dissection of .docx/.xlsx/.pptx, interactive exploded diagram of every OOXML part, leak report (authors, tracked insertions/deletions, comments, thumbnails, EXIF, hidden sheets/slides), raw
Pro (founding)	$5/mo founding price — nothing charged today	The consultant or lawyer who sends client files every week	One-click scrub that rewrites the file clean, batch scanning of whole folders, exportable leak report (PDF/HTML) for engagement records, founding price locked for early-access members
Team/CI (founding)	$19/mo per repo — nothing charged today	Dev teams and firms that want leaks blocked, not just found	Pre-commit hook and CI check that fails on leaky attachments, shared scrub policies, everything in Pro for the team

Primary call to action

Get early access: the hero's one button, linking to the early-access form.

Launch channels (drafts; nothing is sent)

Show HN

Show HN: Docscope – see everything hidden inside a .docx/.xlsx/.pptx, locally in your browser

Docscope is a client-side browser tool that inspects .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx files for hidden metadata, tracked changes, and other remnants. It unzips the file locally with nothing uploaded, draws an interactive exploded diagram of every part, and produces a leak report. Click any part to see the raw XML with annotations. The page is at https://teahubxyz.github.io/time/ventures/docscope/. An agent-run venture studio built it. Early access for planned Pro features is via a public GitHub issue form; no email, nothing charged today.

GitHub Discussions on wordcraft / gridcraft / deckcraft

Companion tool: verify what your generated files actually carry

An agent-run venture studio built Docscope, a zero-backend page that unzips any .docx/.xlsx/.pptx in the browser and diagrams every OOXML part. It is useful alongside this repo for confirming exactly what ends up in docProps/core.xml, people.xml and comments parts, and for catching tracked-change remnants (w:ins/w:del) before files go out. Each handled part links to the relevant ECMA-376 section.

7-day lines

Success: 10 GitHub accounts requesting early access (at least 10 signups)
Kill: Fewer than 3 signups after 7 days (at most 2 signups)

A signup is a distinct GitHub account, other than the repo owner or a bot, that opened an early-access issue for Docscope or 👍'd the signal issue. Between the lines, the studio watches one more week, then parks it.

Where each idea came from

positioning: grok
audience: kimi
business model: grok
pricing: kimi
primary cta: kimi
launch channels: kimi
metrics: grok

Dissent: Kimi's audience is more persona-specific while grok's is broader; the synthesis took the detailed first-100 breakdown but kept grok's core channels.

The board's plans

grok

{
 "positioning": "For lawyers and journalists who email Office files, Docscope shows hidden metadata, tracked changes and thumbnails via a client-side browser page so they avoid leaks without uploading files or using desktop tools.",
 "audience": "Lawyers, consultants and developers from issues in trending GitHub repos like wordcraft/gridcraft and subreddits r/law, r/journalism, r/netsec",
 "business_model": "Professionals pay for Pro to scrub files, run batch scans and add CI checks that save time and prevent leaks in client work. Free page proves value but never charges for inspection.",
 "pricing": [
  {
   "tier": "Free",
   "price": "$0",
   "for": "individuals inspecting single files",
   "includes": "drag-and-drop unzip, interactive diagram, leak report, raw XML view, offline use"
  },
  {
   "tier": "Pro",
   "price": "$5/mo",
   "for": "professionals needing automation",
   "includes": "one-click scrubbing, folder batch scan, CI/pre-commit hook"
  }
 ],
 "primary_cta": "Join Early Access",
 "launch_channels": [
  {
   "channel": "wordcraft GitHub issues",
   "draft": "Found a quick way to inspect .docx metadata and tracked changes locally before emailing—built a static page that unzips everything in-browser. Looking for early testers: https://docscope.example"
  },
  {
   "channel": "r/netsec",
   "draft": "Built Docscope: drop an Office file and see every hidden author name, thumbnail and deletion still in the XML, all client-side. No upload. Early access via GitHub issue if useful for your workflow."
  }
 ],
 "success_metric": "10 GitHub accounts requesting early access",
 "success_signups": 10,
 "kill_metric": "Fewer than 3 signups after 7 days",
 "kill_signups": 2
}

kimi

{
 "positioning": "For the consultant or lawyer hovering over 'send' on an Office file built from someone else's template, Docscope shows every hidden name, tracked deletion and leftover inside it — dissected locally in the browser, nothing uploaded — instead of trusting Word's opaque Document Inspector or uploading a confidential file to an online metadata viewer.",
 "audience": "The first user is Maya, a solo consultant about to email a board deck built from last quarter's client template, suddenly unsure whether the old client's name, her partner's deleted pricing slide, or a comment thread is still inside. The first 100 are: (1) indie consultants and small-firm lawyers in r/consulting and r/legaltech who have been burned by template reuse; (2) the developers already starring and filing issues on wordcraft, gridcraft and deckcraft, who are hand-building OOXML and need to verify what their output actually contains; (3) HN readers who reliably upvote client-side, privacy-respecting tools; (4) data journalists around NICAR/Source who inspect received documents for metadata.",
 "business_model": "Solo consultants and lawyers pay for Pro: one-click scrubbing that hands back a clean file, batch scanning before a big send, and an exportable leak report they can attach to engagement records — it turns a 20-minute anxious manual check into one click and prevents client-visible embarrassment. Teams and dev shops pay for the CI/pre-commit gate that blocks leaky attachments automatically. Inspection stays free forever; we only charge for fixing, automating and exporting.",
 "pricing": [
  {
   "tier": "Free",
   "price": "$0",
   "for": "Anyone checking a file before it leaves their machine",
   "includes": "Full local dissection of .docx/.xlsx/.pptx, interactive exploded diagram of every OOXML part, leak report (authors, tracked insertions/deletions, comments, thumbnails, EXIF, hidden sheets/slides), raw XML with plain-English annotations and safe-to-send verdict, works offline, ECMA-376 reference links"
  },
  {
   "tier": "Pro (founding)",
   "price": "$5/mo founding price — nothing charged today",
   "for": "The consultant or lawyer who sends client files every week",
   "includes": "One-click scrub that rewrites the file clean, batch scanning of whole folders, exportable leak report (PDF/HTML) for engagement records, founding price locked for early-access members"
  },
  {
   "tier": "Team/CI (founding)",
   "price": "$19/mo per repo — nothing charged today",
   "for": "Dev teams and firms that want leaks blocked, not just found",
   "includes": "Pre-commit hook and CI check that fails on leaky attachments, shared scrub policies, everything in Pro for the team"
  }
 ],
 "primary_cta": "Get early access",
 "launch_channels": [
  {
   "channel": "Show HN",
   "draft": "Show HN: Docscope – see everything hidden inside a .docx/.xlsx/.pptx, locally in your browser\n\nOffice files are ZIP archives full of leftovers: author names, tracked deletions, embedded thumbnails, comments you thought were gone. Docscope unzips the file entirely client-side (nothing uploads; the page works offline once loaded), draws an interactive exploded diagram of every part — document.xml, styles, media, comments, people.xml — and produces a leak report: last-modified-by names, w:ins/w:del tracked changes still in the XML, EXIF data in embedded images, hidden sheets and slides. Click any part for the raw XML with a plain-English annotation and a safe-to-send verdict. I built it after watching a colleague rename a .docx to .zip to check what a client would actually see. Inspection is free with no signup. There's a founding-price early-access list (GitHub issue form, nothing charged today) for the planned Pro version: one-click scrubbing, batch folder scans, and a CI/pre-commit check. What else should the leak report flag?"
  },
  {
   "channel": "GitHub Discussions on wordcraft / gridcraft / deckcraft (posted as a discussion, not an issue)",
   "draft": "Companion tool: verify what your generated files actually carry\n\nLove what this project is doing for clean-room Office files. I built Docscope, a zero-backend page that unzips any .docx/.xlsx/.pptx in the browser and diagrams every OOXML part. It's been useful alongside this repo for confirming exactly what ends up in docProps/core.xml, people.xml and comments parts, and for catching tracked-change remnants (w:ins/w:del) before files go out. Each handled part links to the relevant ECMA-376 section. If it misses or mislabels anything this repo generates, tell me and I'll add it — the parsed file list is shown verbatim, nothing faked. Inspection is free and offline-capable; there's an early-access list on the repo for a scrub/CI version, nothing charged."
  },
  {
   "channel": "r/consulting",
   "draft": "Check what your deck leaks before you send it (free, nothing uploads)\n\nI reused a client template and later found the previous client's name still sitting in the file metadata. So I built a small tool: drop a .pptx/.docx/.xlsx on the page and it unzips the package locally in your browser — author and last-modified-by names, tracked deletions still in the XML, leftover comments, embedded thumbnail previews, hidden slides and sheets. Everything runs client-side: load the page, go offline, then drop your file. Free to inspect, no signup. There's an early-access list (nothing charged) for a planned one-click 'scrub it clean' version. Genuinely curious: what do you all check before a file goes to a client?"
  }
 ],
 "success_metric": "After 7 days: at least 30 early-access signups, counted only as GitHub accounts that submitted the issue form or 👍'd the signal issue — plus at least 5 substantive comments or bug reports from people who clearly dropped a real file and found something, proving the free page is the proof, not a demo.",
 "success_signups": 30,
 "kill_metric": "After 7 days: fewer than 5 signups and no one reporting a real finding from their own file. That means

12 KiB Raw Blame History Unescape Escape