NIS User Guide — Your Network, Organized

By James Aspinwall — February 2026

NIS is a personal information system that tracks the people, companies, websites, and activities in your professional life. It reduces cognitive load — instead of remembering who to call, what you discussed, and what’s pending, NIS remembers for you and tells you what to do next.

You interact with NIS three ways:

  1. Web UI — visual dashboards, forms, lists
  2. MCP tools — natural language via an LLM (“who should I contact today?”)
  3. REST API — programmatic access for automation

This guide starts simple and builds up.

Part 1 — The Basics

Adding a Contact

You met someone at a conference. Open /nis/contacts, click + New.

Field What to enter
Name Sarah Chen
Nickname Sarah
Company Fintech Corp (links to the company record — create it first)
Location Berlin conference, Oct 2025
Relation Met at ElixirConf EU — she runs engineering at Fintech Corp
Background Interested in AI integration, managing team of 12
Contact medium {"email":"[email protected]","linkedin":"sarahchen","phone":"+49..."}
Referred by Marco Ricci — introduced us at the ElixirConf afterparty
Priority 60
Stage first_contact
Tags ["prospect","elixirconf","engineering lead"]
Interests ["elixir","AI integration","team scaling"]

Referred by tracks who or what introduced this contact: a person, an event, “cold LinkedIn outreach.” Knowing the referral source helps you thank the right people and understand which channels produce results.

Or via natural language through the MCP:

“Add a contact: Sarah Chen, met at ElixirConf EU in Berlin. She runs engineering at Fintech Corp, interested in AI integration. Email [email protected], LinkedIn sarahchen. Referred by Marco Ricci. Priority 60, tag as prospect, stage first_contact. Link her to Fintech Corp.”

Both produce the same result. Use whichever is faster in the moment.

Adding a Company

Sarah works somewhere worth tracking separately.

Field What to enter
Name Fintech Corp
Location Berlin, Germany
Purpose Digital banking platform for SMEs
Interest Potential client — they need AI tooling for compliance workflows
Priority 70
Stage first_contact
Tags ["prospect","fintech","berlin"]

Companies have their own priority (0–100), independent of deal value. A $10K deal with a fast-closing champion might rank higher than a $100K deal stuck in committee.

Adding a Website

You found their engineering blog. Worth bookmarking with context.

Field What to enter
URL https://engineering.fintechcorp.com
Company Fintech Corp (links to the company record)
Purpose Their tech blog — they write about Elixir microservices. Good for understanding their stack before a pitch.
Tags ["prospect research","elixir","tech blog"]

Adding a Note

After the conference, you want to capture what you discussed.

Open Sarah’s contact page. The + New Note form is at the bottom.

Field What to enter
Content Talked for 20 min about their compliance bottleneck. They manually review 30% of flagged transactions. She’s frustrated with Python ML pipeline — too slow, too fragile. Asked me to send a one-pager on our approach.
Reason First conversation — captured pain points
Channel {"mode":"in-person"}
Tags ["first meeting","compliance","pain point"]

Check “Set as next action”, pick a due date from the date picker, and NIS pins this note to Sarah’s contact card. You’ll see it every time you open her page, and it shows up in your morning briefing when the date arrives.

Part 2 — Working Your Network

The Morning Briefing

Open /nis/due or ask the LLM:

“What’s due today?”

NIS returns every contact, company, and activity with a next_contact_at that’s today or overdue. You see:

This is your action list. No scanning calendars, no digging through email. NIS collected it while you worked.

Asking What’s Critical

“Who are my highest priority contacts I haven’t spoken to in over a week?”

The LLM queries NIS: contacts sorted by priority descending, filtered where last_contact_at is older than 7 days. You get a ranked list with the last note for each — instant context on where you left off.

“What’s pending for Fintech Corp?”

Returns the company record, all open activities linked to it, the last note, and the next action. One question, full picture.

Checking Status

“What’s the status on the Sarah Chen deal?”

The LLM pulls Sarah’s contact, Fintech Corp’s company record, all notes tagged “prospect” across both, and open activities. It synthesizes:

“You met Sarah at ElixirConf 3 weeks ago. She asked for a one-pager on compliance tooling — that’s 3 days overdue. Fintech Corp received your proposal last Tuesday, no response yet. Next step: send the one-pager to Sarah, then follow up on the proposal mid-week.”

You didn’t search anything. You asked a question and got an answer with a recommendation.

Part 3 — The Prospect Flow

Here’s how NIS tracks a prospect from first contact to closed deal. Jimmy does this daily — meet someone, research them, build a case, pitch, follow up, close.

Stage 1 — First Contact

You meet a potential client. Create the company first, then the contact linked to it via company_id. Set referred_by — who introduced you, or where you met them. Set both to stage "first_contact". Add a note capturing the conversation. Set a next action: “Send intro email with one-pager.”

“Who referred my last 5 prospects?”

Because referred_by is searchable, you can spot patterns — maybe conferences produce better leads than cold outreach, or maybe Marco’s introductions always convert.

Stage 2 — Research

Add websites linked to the company: their company site, engineering blog, press coverage. Add notes to each with what you learned. Tag everything "prospect research". Update the contact’s stage to "research".

“Show me all my research on Fintech Corp”

Returns every note, website, and activity tagged with Fintech Corp or linked to it. Your research is organized without a folder structure — tags and entity links do the work.

Stage 3 — Outreach

Update Sarah’s stage to "outreach". Create an activity: “Send intro email to Sarah Chen.” Link it to both Sarah’s contact and Fintech Corp.

After sending, add a note:

Content Sent one-pager via email. Highlighted compliance rule engine and 95% cost reduction vs LLM-per-transaction.
Channel {"mode":"email"}
Tags ["outreach","proposal"]

Update last_contact_at. Set next action: “Follow up in 3 days if no reply” with a due date 3 days out.

Stage 4 — Follow-Up

Update Sarah’s stage to "follow_up". Three days later, NIS shows “Follow up with Sarah Chen” in your due list. You ask:

“Draft a follow-up email to Sarah Chen about the compliance proposal”

The LLM reads Sarah’s contact (background, interests), the company purpose, and all notes. It drafts a personalized email referencing your conversation, the one-pager, and her specific pain point about Python ML pipelines.

You edit, send, log it as a note.

Stage 5 — Demo & Negotiation

Sarah replies. Update her stage to "demo". You schedule a demo. Create an activity: “Demo for Fintech Corp — Feb 28,” linked to both Sarah and Fintech Corp. Add notes after each call.

“What did we discuss in the last three conversations with Sarah?”

Instant recap. No scrolling through email threads.

Stage 6 — Close

They sign. Move everything to closed in one shot:

“Move Sarah Chen and Fintech Corp to closed_won”

NIS updates the stage on both entities in a single call — no updating them one by one. Set deal_value on Fintech Corp (e.g. 50000 for $500/month annual). Update the company tags: add "client", remove "prospect". Add a note with contract details. Set next action: “Onboarding kickoff call — Mar 5.”

“What’s my pipeline worth?”

NIS returns all contacts and companies with a stage set, grouped by stage, with deal values. You see the total value at each stage and where to focus.

The entire journey — from handshake at a conference to signed contract — is captured in contacts, companies, notes, and activities. Searchable. Queryable. Available to the LLM for context at every step.

Part 4 — Activities in Depth

Activities are actions: things to do, things you did, things someone else needs to do. They can link to multiple entities — a single activity can involve a contact, their company, and a website all at once.

Examples:

Activity Linked to Status
Call Giovanni about business’ license Contact: Giovanni open
Update address for IRS — open
Check SS check was deposited — done
Send proposal to Sarah at Fintech Corp Contact: Sarah, Company: Fintech Corp open
Review Sarah’s engineering blog Contact: Sarah, Website: engineering.fintechcorp.com open
Research competitor pricing — open

Activities have three statuses: open, done, cancelled. When you mark an activity as done, NIS records the completion time — so “what did I accomplish today?” works.

Recurring activities: Set recurrence to "weekly", "monthly", etc. When a recurring activity is marked done, NIS auto-creates the next instance. “Call Giovanni every month” — mark it done, next month’s activity appears automatically.

“What are my open activities for this week?”

“Mark the IRS address update as done”

“What activities are linked to Fintech Corp?”

“What did I complete today?”

Each activity carries notes — add context as things progress. The activity becomes a mini-timeline of the task.

Part 5 — Ideas, Priorities, and Delegation

Capturing Ideas

An idea is a note. Tag it "idea" and attach it to whatever it relates to — a contact, a company, or nothing at all. Standalone notes (no parent entity) work for ideas that don’t belong to anyone or anything yet.

“Add a note: idea — offer Fintech Corp a pilot program, 30-day free trial of compliance engine. Tag as idea, pricing.”

“Add a standalone note: idea — build a webinar series targeting compliance officers. Tag as idea, marketing.”

Later:

“Show me all my ideas”

“Show me ideas tagged pricing”

Prioritizing

Contacts and companies both have a priority field (0–100). Use it to separate the critical from the noise.

“Who are my top 10 priority contacts?”

“What are my top 5 priority companies?”

“Set Sarah Chen’s priority to 80”

Company priority is independent of deal value — a small deal that’s moving fast might outrank a large deal that’s stalled. Use priority for where to focus your energy, deal value for revenue forecasting.

Activities inherit urgency from their next_contact_at date. Overdue surfaces first. The due list is your priority queue — NIS builds it automatically from the dates you set.

Delegating

Add a note to the activity: “Delegated to Jimmy — he’ll handle the initial research.” Tag it "delegated". Set a next action: “Check with Jimmy on Friday.”

“What have I delegated this week?”

“What’s Jimmy’s status on the Fintech Corp research?”

Reviewing

“Give me a weekly review: what did I complete, what’s overdue, what’s coming up?”

The LLM queries activities completed this week (filtered by completed_at), overdue next actions across all entities, and upcoming next_contact_at dates. One prompt, full status.

Forgetting and Cleaning Up

“Delete the website for old-competitor.com”

“Cancel the activity about the trade show — we’re not attending”

“Remove all notes tagged ‘draft’ from Giovanni’s contact”

Cascade deletes handle cleanup. Delete a contact and all its notes go with it. No orphaned data.

Part 6 — Advanced Usage

Drafting Communications

“Draft an email to Sarah introducing our compliance rule engine. Reference her pain point about Python ML pipelines and the cost comparison from my notes.”

The LLM reads every note on Sarah’s contact and Fintech Corp. It knows her background, your conversation history, and the technical details you recorded. The draft is personalized and specific — not a template.

Research and Positioning

“What do I know about Fintech Corp’s tech stack based on my notes and saved websites?”

Because websites link to companies via company_id, NIS pulls Fintech Corp’s company record, all websites associated with it, and all notes across both. The LLM synthesizes everything into a tech stack summary.

“Compare my notes on Fintech Corp and Solaris Group — which is a better prospect and why?”

“Based on Sarah’s interests and pain points, what should I emphasize in the demo?”

NIS becomes your research assistant. Every note you’ve ever taken is searchable context for the LLM.

Brainstorming

“Based on my prospect notes, what common pain points do my top 5 prospects share? How should I position the compliance engine to address all of them?”

The LLM synthesizes across contacts, companies, and notes to find patterns you might miss by looking at each prospect individually.

Birthday and Relationship Maintenance

Contacts with a birthday field (MM-DD) appear in /nis/birthdays when their birthday is within the next 7 days.

“Who has a birthday this week?”

“Draft a birthday message for Karen — keep it warm, she’s my sister”

For relationship maintenance beyond birthdays:

“Who haven’t I spoken to in over a month that has priority above 50?”

Set contact_every on important contacts — "weekly", "biweekly", "monthly", or "quarterly". When you log an interaction (updating last_contact_at), NIS automatically sets next_contact_at forward by the interval. The contact reappears in your due list on schedule without you manually resetting the date each time.

Part 7 — The Daily Workflow

Here’s how a motivated, goal-oriented person uses NIS through a typical day.

Morning — 5 minutes:

“What’s my briefing for today?”

NIS returns: overdue actions, due today, upcoming birthdays, highest-priority contacts with stale last-contact dates. You know exactly what needs attention.

During the day — as things happen:

After a call, add a note. After sending an email, log it. After a meeting, capture the key points and set the next action. Each entry takes 30 seconds — a sentence or two plus a tag.

Via MCP this is one sentence:

“I just called Sarah. She confirmed the demo for Friday. Set next action: prepare demo materials by Thursday.”

NIS handles this in a single operation — creates the note, sets last_contact_at to now (which triggers automatic rescheduling if contact_every is set), and creates the next action with a due date. No juggling multiple steps. If you log 10+ interactions a day, this adds up.

End of day — 2 minutes:

“How did I do today?”

NIS returns your stats: notes logged, activities completed, contacts added, anything overdue. One number that tells you whether you moved the needle.

“What’s still open?”

Open activities, sorted by urgency. Adjust priorities. Move anything that slipped to tomorrow.

Weekly — 10 minutes:

“Give me my weekly stats and review”

NIS returns the full picture: interactions logged, activities completed, contacts added, pipeline movement (who changed stage and in which direction), and overdue count. You see the numbers and the narrative together.

“Which contacts haven’t I reached in 2 weeks?”

Reprioritize. Clean up cancelled items. Plan the week ahead.

What NIS Does for You

NIS exists so you can focus on the work — the conversations, the pitches, the relationship building — instead of the bookkeeping around it.