02 / CASE STUDY
KrystalScholr
KrystalScholr started as a product question: why do research teams still bounce between docs, reference managers and chat? I built a writing environment that treats a paper as a living system outlines, sources, comments and version history without making the interface feel like a CMS. The work sat at the intersection of editorial design and serious full-stack engineering.
- Role
- Full-Stack Engineer
- Year
- 2026
- Client
- Product
- Stack
- Next.js · NestJS · TypeScript
Key features
- Long-form editor with structured sections and outlines
- Shared research library with citation-friendly source records
- Inline comments, suggestions and review states
- Real-time co-authoring with presence and lock-aware blocks
- Export-ready document structure for academic workflows
Challenge
Academic writing is long, nested and slow to change. The product had to support dense documents and careful review without collapsing into a generic notes app.
Solution
I modeled papers as structured documents rather than blobs of text, then layered real-time collaboration on top. NestJS and MySQL held canonical versions; Liveblocks kept co-authors in sync; the Next.js editor stayed focused on reading, writing and reviewing.
