Just-In-Time

A lightweight, client-side budget justification generator and verifier for research administrators. No backend, no build step — hosted on GitHub Pages.

Contents: Quick Start · Features · How It Works · Tech Stack & File Structure · Local Development · Deployment

Quick Start

1. Open index.html (or serve the folder — see Local Development), then create or open a project.
2. Click Settings, save a Gemini API key (skipped automatically on Vandalizer/DGX deployments), and add an Institutional Profile with your fringe/F&A boilerplate.
3. From the project, pick a path:
   • Generate a new draft — on the Generator tab, upload a budget spreadsheet and project summary, choose a profile and template type, and click Generate Justification. Review the draft, keep it, then refine it in the editor.
   • Check an existing justification — on the Verifier tab, upload (or reuse) the justification and its spreadsheet, and click Verify Budget. Work through the guided chat for each finding.
4. New to a tab? Click the ? button in the corner for a step-by-step walkthrough and a hands-on sample-document tour — it steps aside once you've actually used that tab in the project.

Getting a Gemini API Key

DGX / Vandalizer deployments: AI calls route through the deployment's own proxy automatically — no key needed, and an expired session refreshes itself mid-use.

1. Go to aistudio.google.com, sign in, and click Get API key → Create API key. It's free, with no billing required for standard use.
2. Paste it into Settings → Gemini API Key. It's stored only in your browser's localStorage and never leaves your device.

Treat the key like a password — never commit it to a public repository, and check your key's data-sharing terms before sending sensitive budget data.

Features

Projects

• Everything happens inside a Project, stored entirely in your browser (IndexedDB) — nothing is uploaded to a server.
• A project remembers its files, drafts, and verification history so you can leave and pick up later.
• Settings (API key, Institutional Profiles) are shared across all projects, managed from the Projects screen.

Generator

• A 3-phase flow: generate a first draft, validate it against your spreadsheet, then edit it in an interactive canvas before exporting.
• The spreadsheet's Total Budget is confirmed automatically by AI before generation begins — you're only asked to enter it yourself if it can't.
• Numbers always come from your spreadsheet, never from AI narrative: every total is recomputed rather than trusted, and multi-year items, itemized travel costs, and duplicate "Other" expenses are reconciled automatically.
• Once a draft exists, reopen it or discard everything to start over, right from the Generator tab.
• Template Mode swaps AI narrative for placeholder text, for a purely structural draft.

Verifier

• Checks an existing budget justification against its spreadsheet — upload both, or let the active project's files fill in automatically.
• AI labels and matches every dollar value, then groups any discrepancies by root cause.
• A guided chat walks you through each finding so you confirm, explain, or flag it yourself — nothing is auto-corrected.
• Ends in a plain-language summary and a downloadable marked-up copy of the justification.
• Past runs are saved per project and can be revisited from Verification History.

The Editor

• Every dollar figure is either Linked to a spreadsheet cell or Calculated from other values — click one to see where it comes from, relink it, or edit its formula.
• Everything else, headings and labels included, is free text you can edit directly. Select any plain dollar amount and click Set Selection as Value to bring it under the same system.
• A banner flags any figure that couldn't be matched automatically, and re-uploading a spreadsheet keeps every linked value in sync.
• View the project's uploaded documentation alongside the spreadsheet, and export to .docx as many times as you like.

Institutional Profiles

• Store your fringe/F&A boilerplate so the AI weaves institution-specific language into the narrative.
• On-premises (Vandalizer) deployments can ship a shared, read-only default profile for everyone on that install — see profiles/README.md.

How It Works

Both tools follow the same strategy: numbers come from a deterministic source — the spreadsheet, or plain-text search — and AI is only ever trusted to label, match, or write around those numbers, never to originate or silently change them.

Verifier: trust the spreadsheet, question the writing

flowchart LR
    J[Justification .docx] -->|plain-text search, not AI| V[Every dollar value found]
    V -->|AI labels each one| L[Labeled values]
    S[Spreadsheet] --> M
    L -->|AI matches by meaning| M[Matched against spreadsheet]
    M -->|grouped by root cause| F[Findings]
    F --> C[Guided chat: confirm, dismiss, or flag]
    C --> R[Marked-up justification]

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AI only labels and matches; it never rules on right or wrong by itself — every mismatch is a finding you resolve yourself in the chat.

Generator: the spreadsheet is the only source of truth

flowchart LR
    B[Spreadsheet] --> Q[AI confirms Total Budget]
    Q --> H[AI suggests relevant items per section]
    H --> Ex[AI extracts structured data]
    Ex -->|totals recomputed, not trusted from AI| T[Verified numbers]
    T --> N[AI writes narrative around the verified numbers]
    N --> W{Draft matches Total Budget?}
    W -->|either way, you choose| P[Preview: keep or start over]
    P -->|generate new version| N
    P -->|keep| X[Editor: every figure Linked or Calculated]
    X --> D[Exported justification .docx]

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The AI writes narrative language around numbers that are already locked in — a draft that changes one gets rejected and rewritten. Once kept, every figure stays traceable, Linked or Calculated, right up until export.

Tech Stack & File Structure

Expand

Concern	Library
Spreadsheet parsing	SheetJS
Word document parsing	Mammoth.js
AI generation	Gemini API (structured JSON output)
Word document generation	docx (built programmatically)
Verifier progress animation	anime.js (CDN)
Settings & review-chat persistence	Browser localStorage
Project storage (spreadsheets, project docs, drafts, edit state)	Browser IndexedDB

justintime/
├── index.html              # SPA shell
├── css/
│   └── styles.css
├── js/
│   ├── app.js              # Boot, tab routing, project-aware wiring
│   ├── project-store.js    # IndexedDB CRUD for Projects
│   ├── project-picker.js   # Projects screen: create/rename/delete/open, Settings view toggle
│   ├── settings.js         # Settings: API key + Institutional Profiles, local/default profile loading
│   ├── generator.js        # Generate → Validate orchestration, Total Budget check-figure extraction
│   ├── parser.js           # SheetJS parsing: CSV text + per-cell sheet data for linking
│   ├── value-graph.js      # Classifies every dollar figure as Linked or Calculated; recomputes on edit
│   ├── layout-builder.js   # Builds the editable block outline of a generated draft
│   ├── editor-canvas.js    # Interactive editor: free-text editing, linking, formulas, audit banner, export
│   ├── validation-checkpoint.js # Pass/fail checkpoint against the confirmed Total Budget
│   ├── api.js              # Universal API adapter: Gemini direct (standalone) or Vandalizer proxy (DGX-hosted)
│   ├── schemas.js          # Full JSON schemas per template type + VerifierSchemas
│   ├── sections.js         # Section registry: ordered section definitions per template
│   ├── verifier.js         # Portable two-step verification core: Verifier.run(text, csv, key)
│   ├── verifier-tab.js     # Verifier tab UI: file handling, orchestration, results, verification history
│   ├── verify-anim.js      # Animated scan/label/match/audit/summarize progress sequence
│   ├── verifier-chat.js    # Chat-driven findings review, persists/resumes via localStorage
│   ├── highlighter.js      # DOCX markup: injects <w:highlight> into flagged runs via JSZip
│   ├── doc-preview.js      # Live in-browser justification preview
│   ├── sheet-preview.js    # Live in-browser spreadsheet preview
│   ├── document.js         # Renders the editor's blocks to a .docx and triggers download
│   ├── how-it-works.js     # "How It Works" walkthrough, tab-aware
│   └── try-it-tutorial.js  # Guided "Try it out!" sample-document walkthroughs
├── templates/
│   ├── nsf.txt             # Reference: NSF section layout and field definitions
│   └── general.txt         # Reference: General grants.gov section layout and field definitions
├── profiles/                # On-prem deployments only: profiles.json supplies a shared default profile
└── examples/                # Sample files used by the "Try it out!" tours

Local Development

No build step. Open index.html directly, or serve the directory:

npx serve .

Deployment

Push to main — GitHub Pages serves index.html from the repository root automatically.