What we built and fixed on Coil, week by week.

8 weeks, 884 commits, 187 issues fixed.

Press play to watch the build come together a week at a time, or drag the slider. Hover a chart, or tap it on a phone, to see that week's headline; click it, or a week below the charts, to read the full story.

What we are working on, and what comes after it.

Taken from the written plan. There are no dates on it, and the order can change with what firms ask for. The full tool-by-tool picture is on the features page.

Newest first.

Weeks run Monday to Sunday, Central time. Commits include the notes the people and AI agents working on Coil keep for each other; "changes to the code" leaves those out.

1. Week 8 October 26 to November 1 In progress

   Month-end fixes, and screens that show each role only what it can use

   Through Monday: a time entry takes the rate of the matter it is logged to, QuickBooks exports take a date range and include credit memos, and email to clients shows the firm's name, with replies going back to the firm. Staff no longer see buttons or links their role would only be refused at, and new staff get initials that do not clash with a colleague's. New firms now send email through a dedicated sending service, with each firm's own name on the From line and SPF, DKIM and DMARC passing. The testers kept working through the calendar, tasks, discovery and time entry in detail.

   Written through October 26.

   • A time entry takes the matter's rate unless one is typed
   • QuickBooks exports by date range, with credit memos
   • Client email from the firm's name, replies to the firm
   • Each role sees only the buttons and links it can use
   • Firm email through a dedicated sending service

   • 2 commits
   • 2 changes to the code
   • 7 issues fixed
   • 657 QA cases
   • 1,736 tests at week's end

   Most work went to Calendar, dates and deadlinesFirm settings and security

   Show week 8 on the build map

2. Week 7 October 19 to 25

   Getting ready for the first firms: a dedicated US server, staff invites, phones and month-end billing

   Hosted firms moved to a dedicated server in a US data center, with firm data on an encrypted disk, and Coil's tests and security checks now run on its own infrastructure. An owner can add a colleague by email, and the new person sets their own password from the link. Coil now works properly at phone width, with a collapsible menu, no sideways scrolling and larger tap targets, including every page a client opens from a link. The testers spent the week on what a beta firm meets first: a month of billing, a client's whole journey from intake to a closed matter, card and bank payments in Stripe's test mode, imports from another system, and deliberate misuse of the public pages. Out of that came late interest charged by the day, a button to run monthly invoicing on demand, bank-transfer trust deposits shown as pending until they settle, and full addresses kept when importing contacts from another practice management system.

   • Hosted firms on a dedicated server in a US data center, firm data on an encrypted disk
   • Add a colleague by email; they set their own password from the link
   • Phone layout: collapsible menu, no sideways scrolling, larger tap targets
   • Late interest charged by the day, and monthly invoicing on demand
   • Bank-transfer trust deposits shown as pending and kept out of balances until they settle
   • Every date and time shown in the firm's own time zone

   • 86 commits
   • 71 changes to the code
   • 29 issues fixed
   • 770 QA cases
   • 1,730 tests at week's end

   Most work went to Firm settings and securityCalendar, dates and deadlinesClient portal, email and textsTrust and accounting

   Show week 7 on the build map

3. Week 6 October 12 to 18

   Two-factor sign-in, passkeys, encrypted backups, and all eight gates verified

   The security plan agreed on October 15 shipped its first part the same week. Firms get two-factor sign-in with an authenticator app and single-use recovery codes, passkeys for Face ID, Touch ID or Windows Hello, a setting that requires two-factor for the roles a firm chooses, sessions that end after a period of inactivity, and a page listing every signed-in device with a way to sign one out. Sensitive actions ask for the password again. Backups are encrypted and copied off site, and the audit log is tamper-evident. A firm owner can give Coil support time-limited access, with every visit logged. With the support response target confirmed, the eighth acceptance gate, operating readiness for hosted firms, was verified.

   • Two-factor sign-in with an authenticator app and single-use recovery codes
   • Passkeys: sign in with Face ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello or a phone
   • Sessions end after inactivity, and a signed-in devices page signs out a lost phone
   • Encrypted off-site backups and a tamper-evident audit log
   • Coil support reaches a firm only through a time-limited grant from the owner, every visit logged
   • All eight acceptance gates verified

   • 18 commits
   • 7 changes to the code
   • 1 issue fixed
   • 4 QA cases
   • 1,448 tests at week's end
   • 1 gate passed

   Most work went to Firm settings and securityAI connections and APIPractice areas

   Gates passed: Operating readiness for hosted firms.

   Show week 6 on the build map

4. Week 5 October 5 to 11

   Two firms set up differently on one release, and seven of eight gates passed

   Coil gained firm-level customization: a workspace name, color themes and spacing, the firm's own labels and order for navigation, and rules that add the right tasks when a new matter matches a practice area and billing type. Every change can be previewed before it is published, and earlier versions can be restored. To prove it, the testers set up two very different firms on the same release, a criminal-defense solo and a small hourly-billing firm, and checked that each kept its setup through a real upgrade and a restore from backup. Seven of the eight acceptance gates were verified, and work started on the eighth: health checks, monitoring and a restore drill for hosted firms. Many of the week's 56 fixes came out of invoicing and payments testing, two of them security and permission fixes.

   • Workspace name, color themes, spacing and navigation labels, with preview, history and restore
   • New-matter rules that add tasks by practice area and billing type
   • Two firms with different setups verified side by side, through an upgrade and a restore
   • Invoices, statements and payment plans dated in the firm's time zone, not the server's
   • Pay buttons and card surcharges stay hidden until a firm has connected Stripe
   • A restore refuses a backup made by a newer version of Coil than the one running

   • 269 commits
   • 55 changes to the code
   • 56 issues fixed
   • 2,853 QA cases
   • 1,273 tests at week's end
   • 7 gates passed

   Most work went to Invoices and statementsBackups and operationsFirm settings and securityPayments and payment plans

   Gates passed: Inventory what a firm can configure today; Set up and run a criminal-defense solo firm; Set up and run a small hourly-billing firm; Run both firms side by side, start to finish; Permissions, and isolation between firms; Upgrade both firms without losing their setup; Restore from backup, and roll back.

   Show week 5 on the build map

5. Week 4 September 28 to October 4

   Each firm chooses its own tools

   Firms can now switch off the tools they do not use from Settings, and those tools leave the menu, the dashboard and the matter screens with nothing deleted. A feature one firm asks for becomes available to every firm, switched off until each firm decides to turn it on. AI assistants can connect to Coil by URL with a proper sign-in, and the API now publishes a machine-readable description of itself. A second automated tester started work on its own test firm, and between them the testers recorded results for more than 2,500 numbered test cases. Their accessibility pass put labels on form fields, raised color contrast on status badges, and made pages reflow at 200 percent zoom. In all, 40 issues were fixed, one of them a security fix.

   • Settings > Tools: switch off what the firm does not use, with nothing deleted
   • AI assistants connect by URL, with an OAuth 2.1 sign-in
   • Marking a task done no longer waits for outgoing webhooks to finish
   • Lead status changes and lead edits are written to the audit log
   • Greek and other non-Latin text is found by document search and prints correctly in generated PDFs
   • A text message the carrier refuses shows as refused instead of queued

   • 244 commits
   • 48 changes to the code
   • 40 issues fixed
   • 2,583 QA cases
   • 995 tests at week's end

   Most work went to AI connections and APIDocuments and e-signatureFirm settings and securityIntake and conflict checks

   Show week 4 on the build map

6. Week 3 September 21 to 27

   Imports that survive interruptions, and restores that check themselves

   Large CSV imports, and ZIP imports of whole folders of documents, can now be interrupted and picked up again without losing or doubling rows, and a ZIP import will not file a folder until it can tell exactly which matter it belongs to. Backup and restore got more work than any other area: a restore now checks the database before it reports success, refuses to write over existing data, and recovers from a run that was killed partway through. The drafting tools were held to their sources, so client updates, summaries and deposition comparisons send anything the documents do not support back for review, and attorney analysis notes stay out of client update drafts. Two people signing, converting a lead or creating an invoice at the same moment no longer get an error. In all, 26 issues were fixed, one of them a security fix.

   • Resumable CSV and ZIP imports, with each document folder matched to one matter
   • Restores verify the database first and will not overwrite existing data
   • Client update drafts leave attorney analysis notes out
   • Signature certificates print non-Latin signer names correctly
   • Calendar repeats keep the firm's time zone through month ends, leap days and clock changes
   • Client portal sign-in links work once and expire when a new one is sent

   • 189 commits
   • 77 changes to the code
   • 26 issues fixed
   • 866 tests at week's end

   Most work went to Research and draftingBackups and operationsCalendar, dates and deadlinesInvoices and statements

   Show week 3 on the build map

7. Week 2 September 14 to 20

   Trust transfers, credit notes and deadlines counted in months

   A smaller week by commit count, and a heavy one for trust and billing. Deadlines can now be counted in months and years, with a note on the task when a month-end date had to be adjusted. Trust funds can move between two matters of the same client with the authorization recorded, and a transfer between different clients is refused. Credit notes reduce a balance without rewriting the bill, and paying the firm's own fee from trust became its own kind of transaction, which asks for a reason when the amount runs past what has been billed and worked. A client email filed to a matter can now be answered by email from inside the matter, and web-based AI tools can connect to Coil over MCP.

   • Deadlines in months and years, with a note when a month-end date is adjusted
   • Trust transfers between matters of the same client; transfers between clients refused
   • Credit notes that reduce a balance without rewriting the invoice
   • Reply by email to a client email filed on the matter
   • Text messages a provider refuses show the provider's reason instead of sitting as queued
   • Two trust deposits saved at the same moment no longer fail each other

   • 24 commits
   • 18 changes to the code
   • 11 issues fixed
   • 590 tests at week's end

   Most work went to Trust and accountingClient portal, email and textsAI connections and APICalendar, dates and deadlines

   Show week 2 on the build map

8. Week 1 September 7 to 13

   The code goes public, and the testers start filing issues

   Coil's code went public on September 7 with the core of a practice already in it: intake to a signed engagement letter, flat-fee billing, payments through the firm's own Stripe account, trust accounting with three-way reconciliation, and a client portal. The same day it gained an MCP server and per-resource API scopes, so the AI assistant a firm already uses can work in Coil with only the access it is given, including a mode that keeps client names out. AI features became bring-your-own-key, for hosted firms as well as self-hosted ones. Self-hosted installs got nightly backups of their own, and restore was fixed so it actually restores. On September 12 the automated QA tester began filing what it found as public GitHub issues, and 17 of them were fixed before the week was out.

   • Intake, engagement letters, flat-fee billing, payments, trust and the client portal in the first commit
   • An MCP server and per-resource API scopes for a firm's own AI assistant
   • A setup guide that walks through the optional integrations and lets a firm skip any of them
   • Pages that slowed down under large amounts of data were fixed, then measured again
   • Conflict checks match a name with accents to the same name without them
   • A CSV export for the audit log

   • 52 commits
   • 47 changes to the code
   • 17 issues fixed
   • 433 tests at week's end

   Most work went to Practice areasAI connections and APIBackups and operationsResearch and drafting

   Show week 1 on the build map

Where every number comes from.

• Commits are every commit on the main branch of the Coil repository, dated in Central time, counted from September 7, when the first version built in the days before it was committed.
• Changes to the code leave out commits that only touch notes and checklists.
• Issues fixed are findings marked fixed or closed as done, counted in the week of the fix: on the issue tracker, and since late October also the findings the testers post on their own queues, counted when a fix is recorded against them. Findings judged not to be defects are left out. 111 of the 187 were also re-tested and marked verified by a tester who did not write the fix.
• QA test cases are numbered cases the automated testers recorded a pass, fail or blocked result for, each case once. They are counted from September 28, when results started being posted one row per case; earlier results were written as prose.
• Features built come from Coil's own feature map: 98 of the 101 entries are built today.
• Tests are the automated tests in Coil's test suite at the end of each week, 300 in the first public commit and 1,736 now.
• Acceptance gates are the checks in Coil's QA acceptance plan. A gate counts once a reviewer has recorded it as verified against browser evidence.

Last refreshed October 26, 2026.