DIY Visa

The solution

DIY Visa grew from firsthand experience with confusing DS-160 questions. Applicants work section by section, review their own answers, catch possible inconsistencies, and practice a short interview in English or Bahasa Indonesia.

What changed

The hackathon MVP supports multiple private preparation cases, conditional questions, five-second autosave, human-readable review, photo guidance, and three-question text or voice interviews. Supporting tools include consent-based document auditing and optional retained files.

Behind the solution

Next.js server actions and route handlers call typed capability services. Supabase handles authentication and PostgreSQL storage through Drizzle. The Vercel AI SDK connects to an OpenAI-compatible provider, while private Vercel Blob stores explicitly retained documents.

Technical decisions

• Encrypt sensitive identity and financial fields before storing them in PostgreSQL.
• Enforce case ownership and tenant isolation on the server.
• Require consent for AI processing and confirmation before extracted facts update an application.
• Keep uploads transient by default and make retained-file deletion explicit.
• Keep model output schema-validated and expose uncertainty rather than approval predictions.

Key features

• Guided DS-160 preparation with conditional questions and autosave.
• Missing-answer, timeline, typo, and consistency review.
• Photo guidance and document review with traveler confirmation.
• Bilingual text or voice interview practice.
• Private document organization and a rolling retention policy.

Lessons learned

Trust needs to exist in storage rules, permission checks, interface copy, and user control. A focused preparation tool is more useful than trying to automate the entire government process.

Product boundaries

DIY Visa supports preparation only. It does not submit the DS-160, pay fees, book appointments, provide legal advice, or predict approval. Official applications remain under the traveler’s control on authorized government channels. The product is independent of the U.S. government.

AI system implementation

Typed server-side capability services use the Vercel AI SDK with an OpenAI-compatible provider for answer review, consent-based document auditing, and bilingual interview practice. Model output is schema-validated; extracted facts require traveler confirmation before updating a case. Ownership checks and encrypted sensitive fields protect stored case data. AI supports preparation, not submission, legal advice, or approval prediction.