The call nobody answered, answered by text

The problem

A missed call is usually a lost job, and the gap between the call ringing out and the business noticing is where it dies. Calling back is slow enough that the prospect has often already booked someone else, and the owner is usually on a job site at the time. This is the smallest build in the set, and it exists to close that specific gap rather than to be a platform.

The build

A small web service notices a call that nobody answered and sends the caller a short text, so the first contact does not end in voicemail. Notes on the prospect stay in memory for that process. Configuration is environment variables, with a container and a Makefile so it runs the same way locally and deployed. It is an early, narrow version, not the production receptionist. The live receptionist is the Node.js and Fastify service on SignalWire: Claude Haiku for the conversation, a PostgreSQL knowledge base, and a five-minute cap.

• —A missed call triggers a short text back to the caller
• —Configuration isolated in environment variables
• —An early build, separate from the production receptionist

The outcome

A missed call produces a written response rather than silence. Honest framing: in-memory notes, a handful of modules, no database, and not the system that answers calls today. It predates the production receptionist.