ITSM platform you own: ticketing, SLAs, and escalation without SaaS lock-in
Build OpenDesk, a self-contained ITSM (IT Service Management) application — a lightweight ServiceNow / Jira Service Management alternative. It tracks IT service tickets through their full lifecycle, derives priority automatically, enforces SLAs with escalation, and exposes everything through a documented REST API so other workflows can consume it. Store all state in a single SQLite database on a named volume, mounted read-write with exclusive (single-writer) concurrency so concurrent runs can't corrupt it. No external database or SaaS backend — keep it fully self-contained. Build three steps: Seed — a manually-run step that (re)creates the schema and loads demo data: a handful of users across roles (admin, agents, requester), teams, SLA definitions, a business-hours calendar, and a set of sample tickets spanning ticket types and severities, including at least one already-breached high-priority ticket. Run it once before first use. API — the REST API, served at a route like /api and internally path-routed to all its endpoints. It handles ticket CRUD, priority derivation from an impact × urgency matrix, an enforced status-transition graph (reject invalid jumps), SLA attachment and math (response + resolution clocks, pause on hold, breach and near-breach warning thresholds), audit logging on every mutation, and notification hooks for escalation events. Make the notification sender pluggable — default to a simple stub (log to stderr), but structure it so it can post to Slack, Microsoft Teams, email, PagerDuty, or your team's chat/alerting tool of choice. Gate the route to authenticated tenant members and derive caller identity from the authenticated-email header, auto-creating a requester for unknown users. Return consistent pagination, filtering, and a structured error envelope, and publish an API contract so other workflows can call it. UI — a React "mission control" console at a route like /opendesk that renders immediately and calls the API endpoints from the browser. Include a dashboard, a filterable/searchable ticket list, a ticket detail view (activity timeline, work notes, links, approvals, live SLA timers, status transitions), and a create form with live priority preview. Gate it to authenticated tenant members. Design the schema with multi-tenancy seams (a nullable org id on core tables, first-class teams/assignment groups) and a clearly marked extension point for real business-hours SLA computation, so it can grow without a rewrite. Tools used: SQLite, React
What this prompt builds
OpenDesk is a self-contained ITSM application built entirely as a 3B workflow, offering ticket tracking, SLA enforcement, priority derivation, and a REST API — all stored in SQLite on a named volume. It provides a React console for managing tickets, enforcing status transitions, and escalating breaches without depending on enterprise SaaS licenses. The workflow demonstrates how teams can own their service-desk tooling in-house and how solution engineers can spin up demo environments without vendor NFR restrictions.
The problem
Organizations license enterprise ITSM platforms but use less than 10% of the features they pay for, locking themselves into vendor roadmaps, pricing models, and inflexible data schemas. Solution engineers and partners struggle to spin up realistic demo and evaluation environments as vendors tighten access to Not-For-Resale licenses. Smaller IT and service-desk teams need real ticketing, SLA enforcement, and escalation workflows but can't justify the cost or overhead of over-scoped SaaS contracts. OpenDesk solves this by bringing ITSM capabilities entirely in-house: a complete ticketing system with priority derivation from an impact-urgency matrix, enforced status transitions, SLA timers that pause on hold and escalate at 80% and breach thresholds, a full audit trail, a documented REST API, and a React mission-control console — all running as a 3B workflow with state in SQLite on a named volume.
Solution and impact
Teams gain a working, fully-owned ITSM environment in minutes instead of months-long procurement cycles, with no per-seat SaaS fees and complete control over the data model and business rules. Solution engineers and partners can stand up brandable, realistic demo instances without depending on vendor NFR programs, while IT teams can right-size their tooling to exactly what they need and extend it on their own terms. OpenDesk proves a broader pattern: any partially-used SaaS product can be rebuilt in-house as a scoped, maintainable 3B workflow that you control end to end.