Formstack

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Build the form and approval workflow I actually need instead of Formstack — with the compliance caveat stated first.

**If you are buying this for a certification — HIPAA, or a signed processing agreement — you cannot build that.** The paperwork is the product. If you are buying it for the workflow, that is entirely buildable.

STACK
- Node 20+ with Fastify, server-rendered HTML with a little vanilla JS
- SQLite through better-sqlite3, WAL mode
- Caddy in front

THE DATA MODEL
- forms: id, slug, schema_json, version, workflow_json, is_open
- submissions: id, form_id, form_version, values_json, status, submitted_by, submitted_at
- steps: id, submission_id, position, assignee, decision, note, decided_at — **append-only, and this is the audit trail**
- documents: id, submission_id, template_id, path, sha256, generated_at
- signatures: id, document_id, signer, method, evidence_json, signed_at
- access_log: id, submission_id, actor, action, at — **who read a submission, not only who changed it**

THE WORKFLOW
- An ordered list of steps, each with an assignee resolved by role or by a field on the submission
- Approve, reject with a reason, or return for correction — the third one is the option most systems omit and the one that is needed daily
- Every decision recorded with the actor, the time and the note, and none of them editable
- Escalation if a step sits unactioned past a threshold
- **A submission's current state is derived from its steps, never stored as a status somebody can set.** Derived state cannot disagree with its own history

DOCUMENTS
- A template with placeholders, filled from the submission, rendered to PDF
- Store the hash of every generated document. **A document that can be regenerated differently later is not evidence**
- Attach the generated document to the submission permanently

SIGNATURES
- Capture the signer's name, the time, their IP hash, the document hash and the method. That evidence bundle is what makes a signature defensible
- Email a copy to every signer at the moment of signing, with the document attached

SECURITY, WHICH IS THE REASON THIS CATEGORY EXISTS
- Access checked on the server for every submission and every document, default deny, and **every read logged.** In a regulated setting 'who looked at this record' is asked more often than 'who changed it'
- Encryption at rest for the values, with the key outside the database
- Field-level redaction for anything sensitive, so a workflow participant sees only what their step needs
- Retention per form with a sweeper, and a legal hold flag that suspends it

WHAT MATTERS MOST
Append-only steps, derived status and a read log. Those three are what an auditor asks for, and they are cheap to build if you start with them.