Philosophy & Framing
Architecture Overview
End-to-end data flow from call recording to published content — the Capture > Merge > Distill > Publish pipeline.
Chapter 2 — Architecture Overview
Category: Philosophy & Framing Reading time: 6 minutes
System Diagram
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Workstation (local) │
│ │
│ Zoom → ~/Documents/Zoom/<date> <time> <meeting>/ │
│ │ │
│ ▼ │
│ Automator Folder Action │
│ │ │
│ ▼ │
│ sync-zoom-chats.sh │
│ • Extracts YYYY-MM-DD from folder name │
│ • Renames to YYYY-MM-DD-zoom-chat.txt │
│ • rsync over SSH to VM │
└──────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────┘
│ rsync / SSH
▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ VM: n8n-automation.patchoutech.lab │
│ │
│ ~/n8n/watch/ │
│ ├── YYYY-MM-DD-zoom-chat.txt ← from Mac │
│ └── YYYY-MM-DD-transcript.txt ← from Fathom poller │
│ │
│ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │ Docker Compose │ │
│ │ │ │
│ │ ┌──────────────────────┐ ┌──────────────────────────┐ │ │
│ │ │ n8n container │ │ PostgreSQL (n8n_db) │ │ │
│ │ │ :5678 │◄──►│ postgres:17 │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ Workflows: │ └──────────────────────────┘ │ │
│ │ │ • Fathom Poller │ │ │
│ │ │ • Fathom List │ │ │
│ │ │ • Fathom Fetch │ External APIs │ │
│ │ │ • Merged Summarizer │────────► Fathom AI │ │
│ │ │ │────────► OpenRouter (Claude) │ │
│ │ └──────────────────────┘ │ │
│ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │
│ │
│ ~/n8n/output/YYYY-MM-DD/ │
│ ├── transcript.txt │
│ ├── extracted-signal.md │
│ ├── community-post.md │
│ ├── community-post-compressed.md │
│ └── YYYY-MM-DD-weekly-invite.md │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Data Flow
The system has two independent input paths that converge at the summarizer:
Path A: Chat Log (immediate)
- Zoom call ends → Zoom saves chat to
~/Documents/Zoom/<folder>/ - Automator Folder Action detects new folder
sync-zoom-chats.shextracts the date, renames the file, rsyncs to VM- File lands in
~/n8n/watch/YYYY-MM-DD-zoom-chat.txt - n8n Local File Trigger fires → checks for transcript → waits if absent
Path B: Transcript (delayed, 5-60 minutes)
- Fathom processes the meeting recording
- Fathom Transcript Poller (every 15 min) detects new recording via API
- Fetches transcript, formats as plain text
- Saves to
~/n8n/watch/YYYY-MM-DD-transcript.txt - Checks for chat log → if present, triggers Merged Call Summarizer
Convergence
Whichever file arrives second finds the first and triggers the pipeline:
Chat log + Transcript
→ Merge (# MEETING TRANSCRIPT + # ZOOM CHAT LOG)
→ LLM: Extract Signal
→ LLM: Community Post (plain text)
→ LLM: Compress Post (plain text)
→ LLM: Weekly Invite (next Tuesday's date)Correlation Strategy
Both files are matched by their YYYY-MM-DD prefix:
| Source | Filename Pattern | Date Source |
|---|---|---|
| Workstation sync | YYYY-MM-DD-zoom-chat.txt | Zoom folder name |
| Fathom poller | YYYY-MM-DD-transcript.txt | recording_start_time field |
This works because both dates originate from the same meeting’s start time — Zoom uses it for the folder name, Fathom records it as metadata.
Technology Stack
| Component | Technology | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Workflow engine | n8n 2.10.4 (Docker) | Visual workflow automation |
| Database | PostgreSQL 17 | n8n workflow/credential storage |
| Transcript source | Fathom API | Meeting transcription |
| LLM inference | OpenRouter → Claude Sonnet 4.6 | Content generation |
| File sync | rsync over SSH | Workstation → VM file transfer |
| Trigger (Workstation) | Automator Folder Action | Detect new Zoom recordings |
| Community platform | Skool | Where posts are published |