✅ Delivered POC, full backend service, and AI chatbot within 2 months
✅ Achieved 98.5% test coverage across all delivered features
✅ Production-ready infrastructure, cleared for user testing
What is this project about?
Chronic pain doesn't take days off — but chiropractors do. My good friend, a practising chiropractor based in Sydney, kept running into the same problem: patients would leave his clinic with a rehab plan, then quietly abandon it the moment they were back on their own.
So we built Niggle (formerly Pocket Chiro) — an AI-powered posture, mobility, and pain management app with a twist. At the centre of it is Chiro Buddy, a character-driven accountability mechanic designed to keep users engaged with their recovery between sessions. Think less clinical app, more having a knowledgeable mate in your corner.
My role was the entire technical stack: a Flutter mobile app for iOS and Android, a NestJS backend, and a React-based AI chatbot. Within 2 months of development, we delivered a fully functioning infrastructure with 98.5% test coverage, ready for user testing.
Takeaway #1: 🤝 Domain expertise is a superpower
Building a health app without a clinician would have produced something that looks right but feels wrong. Having my co-founder as the domain expert meant every feature decision had clinical grounding — not just product intuition.
Find your domain expert early. The technology is the easy part.
Takeaway #2: 🧪 Ship fast, test properly
Two months to a fully functioning, user-testable product is aggressive. The only way it worked was to hold the line on test coverage — 98.5% — while moving fast on features.
Cutting corners on testing might save days in the short term, but a bug in a health app is not just a bug. The discipline forced better decisions throughout.
🛠️Tech Stack
Mobile
Backend
Data
Project Management
