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0003: Build the dashboard and storage on the standard library

  • Status: Accepted
  • Date: 2026-09-30

Context

The people who run care-voice are often a family member with a spare computer or a small care organization, not an operations team. Every runtime dependency adds install weight, upgrade churn, and supply-chain risk, and the tool handles sensitive health information.

Decision

  • Runtime dependencies are limited to PyYAML and the Python standard library.
  • The caregiver dashboard, the JSON API, and the Twilio webhooks use http.server.ThreadingHTTPServer.
  • History, transcripts, and alerts live in a single SQLite file through the sqlite3 module.
  • The LLM extractor and the webhook notifier call HTTP APIs with urllib.request; the email notifier uses smtplib.

Consequences

  • pip install care-voice pulls in one dependency, and the standalone executables stay small.
  • Data stays on the machine by default, and deleting one file deletes all history.
  • The dashboard is intentionally small: no sessions, no user accounts, and HTTP basic authentication only when CARE_VOICE_DASHBOARD_PASSWORD is set. Anyone exposing it beyond 127.0.0.1 needs a reverse proxy with TLS.
  • Multi-person installations and a richer UI need a new decision before they add a web framework or a database server.