A snag app that works without signal
A fit-out studio for high-end Singapore homes, where every project ends with a walk through the home listing defects before handover.
/work/snaggingCame in under strain
- System
- Defect capture, review and handover sign-off
- Ask
- A better way to track defects at handover
- Region
- Singapore
The piece A padlock with five pins, one for each state a defect passes through before sign-off opens.
- 5statesopen to closed
- 4fieldsfilled from one spoken sentence
- Offlinecapture with no signal
- 8 Oct 2026production deploy
The ask
An app for tracking handover defects that the team could use with full hands and a client could open without instructions.
The real problem
Defects arrived as WhatsApp photos, were copied into Excel and passed between whoever did admin, so detail fell away at every hand-off.
On site, hands are full and signal is poor, so capture had to work offline with one thumb.
One defect, one record
- Idle
- Live
- Strain
- Fail
BeforeA photo in a group chat, copied into a spreadsheet and passed along until only the photo was left.
AfterCaptured offline by photo and voice as one dated record, verified before it closes. Sign-off stays locked until the last defect closes.
What we built
An offline-first app for the walk, with review, sign-off, admin and a client side. The photo is the defect, a tap marks the spot and holding a button records what is wrong.
The sentence fills category, severity, note and due date, with "by next Friday" turned into a date. The client side opens from a magic link with no password.
How we made it hold
The rules live in the app. A fix isn't closed until someone verifies it and sign-off stays locked, listing the blocking items, while any defect is open.
Backstage The decisions behind the build, and the hardest problem
Decisions
Offline first, with the voice note as the source.
Signal is poor on site, so the recording stays attached and the form fills itself from it.
Status rules enforced in the app.
A rejection needs a reason and sends the defect back.
Sign-off gated on the last defect.
Handover stays locked while anything is open and the screen lists what is blocking it.
Ruled out
Buying a general snagging tool.
The category does photos, plans and reports, yet none of it fitted two people with full hands and a client who opens the list once.
The hardest problem
Capture with full hands and no signal. The room is set once, then a photo, a tap on the spot and one held sentence, recorded offline and turned into category, severity, note and due date.
The difference
- Deployed to production on 8 October 2026, with its data hosted in Singapore.
- One record per defect: photo, room, voice note, due date and history.
- Handover can't be signed off while any defect is open or unverified.
