Everything we deliver for Viridon is fully bespoke — built for your documents, your process, your use cases. We're faster and cheaper because we bring a foundation across the whole stack, not because anything is off-the-shelf. This walks through how the pieces fit: the knowledge layer, the tools, the orchestrator, the workflows, and the mini-apps your teams actually touch.
01 — The mental model
The instinct is to picture this as sequential layers — buy the knowledge layer, then bolt on custom tools, then a UI on top. That model breaks, because you can't know what the knowledge layer needs until you know the workflow it has to serve. So we build top-down and in parallel: many small, reusable modules, wired together as the use cases demand.
Implies "one vendor sells the bottom layer cheap, we add the specific bits on top." It assumes the foundation is generic and fixed. In practice you hit a wall — the retrieval layer alone never satisfies a real workflow, and you can't spec it until you know the workflow.
Each layer is a set of plug-in modules, not a slab. A workflow reaches across layers and pulls only the modules it needs. We build the modules once, then recombine them — which is exactly why a new use case is fast instead of a fresh ground-up build.
02 — The architecture
Here's how we think about the architecture. Your documents feed a Knowledge Layer made of many components. Tools and an orchestrator draw on those components — many-to-many. The orchestrator chains tools into workflows. Workflows compose into the mini-apps your teams use. Color shows what we bring vs. build net-new — but everything on this diagram is fully customizable. Every tool, every knowledge-layer component, workflows, orchestrator, mini-apps — even the pieces we've built before, we customize and tune to exactly what Viridon needs.
Flow ↑ Sources (bottom) → Knowledge Layer → Tools → Workflows → Mini-apps (top)
↳ Click any tool, workflow, or mini-app to pin what it uses across the stack below. Click again to clear. The links are many-to-many — that's the point.
Two things the colors say. First, the components marked all apps — retrieval, ingestion, concept linkages, scoped retrieval, grounded Q&A, web research — are shared infrastructure every mini-app reuses. Second, almost everything is foundation we've built and customize to you; the bespoke pieces — app-specific tools (T1, T3, T4, T6, T10, T12) and knowledge-layer modules KL·D & KL·I–L — are where we spend the saved time. Glean would bring only KL·A, some generic off-the-shelf tools (not customizable), and stop.
03 — The grammar
Once you see the modules, every workflow is a combination of them. Some need the orchestrator to reason and route; some are a fixed, deterministic chain of tools. Either way, it's parts off the same shelf.
The orchestrator reads the selection-report advice, pulls the relevant prior sections, runs the comment tool paragraph-by-paragraph, and surfaces where this bid can differentiate. Swap the parts and you get a different workflow — no new ground-up build.
04 — The first mini-app, end to end
Erin's real workflow runs over months. Here's how the modules above show up across it — Setup is mostly her, then the AI works as a teammate that drafts, researches, comments, and proposes changes she approves.
05 — The same foundation, more mini-apps
The whole point of the foundation is leverage. Proposal writing is its own beast — but the next mini-apps don't inherit its proposal-specific tools. They sit on the shared infrastructure every app uses, then add a few pieces of their own. That's why each new app is a fraction of the first.
Drafts answers to customer follow-ups using the proposal, SME reports, and prior RFI Q&A; flags the likely SME for open items from past delegation patterns; auto-populates and assigns owners in an RFI tracker.
Shared foundationPulls counterparty, dates, term, and obligations from every NDA/contract into a tracker; screens incoming NDAs against Viridon's standard terms and flags only what needs human review.
Shared foundationAI SMEs with deep knowledge of specific customers — answering questions on project histories, long-standing system constraints, and past workshop outputs from large volumes of public ISO/RTO documents.
Shared foundationInternal chatbot covering company context, projects, people, industry terminology, and how core concepts connect. Almost entirely shared foundation — which makes it simple to stand up once the core components of the brain exist.
Shared foundation06 — The leadership case
Two decisions for leadership: buy off-the-shelf or build the platform — and if we build, with whom. Below is the outcome each path actually delivers, measured against everything the platform needs. Same skeleton in all three; what's filled in is the whole story.
07 — The same picture, component by component
Three ways to get here. An off-the-shelf tool gives you one box and stops. A bottom-up vendor builds every box from scratch — fully custom, but slow, expensive, and untested. We bring the boxes already built and spend our time slotting in the few that are uniquely yours.
We're not cheaper because we cut corners on customization. We're cheaper because the foundation — UI, tools, orchestrator, knowledge layer — is already built. We're not writing all the code; we're slotting in the pieces that make this Viridon's. The knowledge layer, apps, and orchestration sit in your platform and transfer with the company — an owned asset in the data room.