Engineering Update: AI-Powered Development & Payment Infrastructure

February 4, 2026 · Waseem Gorgi, Tech Lead · 12 min read

This week marked a significant milestone in HiLucy's technical evolution. We shipped 50+ commits across our WordPress plugin and AI infrastructure, introducing autonomous development workflows, a complete deposit payment system, and new activity management capabilities. Here's a technical breakdown of what we built and how it works.

Week at a Glance

• 54 Commits
• 5,200+ Lines Changed
• 3 Major Features
• 2 AI Agents

1. AI-Powered Development Workflow

The most significant architectural addition is our AI Workflow System, a fully autonomous development pipeline that takes Monday.com tasks and executes them via Claude or Codex agents. When a task moves to "AI: Plan", "AI: Refine", or "AI: Build" status, our system takes over.

┌─────────────────┐     webhook      ┌─────────────────────┐
│   Monday.com    │ ───────────────▶ │  WordPress REST API │
│   (Task Board)  │                  │  /ai-workflow/{act} │
└─────────────────┘                  └──────────┬──────────┘
                                                │
                                     ┌──────────▼──────────┐
                                     │    Job Queue        │
                                     │  wp_hilucy_ai_jobs  │
                                     └──────────┬──────────┘
                                                │
                    ┌───────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┐
                    │                           │                           │
          ┌─────────▼───────┐         ┌─────────▼───────┐         ┌─────────▼───────┐
          │   AI: Plan      │         │   AI: Refine    │         │   AI: Build     │
          │ • Analyze task  │         │ • Review plan   │         │ • Execute code  │
          │ • Write plan.md │         │ • Incorporate   │         │ • Run tests     │
          │ • List files    │         │   feedback      │         │ • Git commit    │
          └─────────────────┘         └─────────────────┘         └────────┬────────┘
                                                                           │
                                                                 ┌─────────▼─────────┐
                                                                 │  GitHub Actions   │
                                                                 │  CI/CD Pipeline   │
                                                                 └───────────────────┘

Figure 1: AI Workflow System Architecture

How It Works

The workflow leverages Monday.com's webhook system to trigger WordPress REST endpoints. When a task status changes, our system fetches the task details including any linked Epic for broader context. The AI agent receives not just the task description, but the entire epic scope, acceptance criteria, and related context.

Co-Authored Commits: All AI-generated code is committed with Co-Authored-By: Claude <[email protected]> to maintain transparency in our Git history.

2. Deposit & Split Payment System

We implemented a complete deposit payment infrastructure for service bookings. Guests can now pay a partial deposit upfront with the remaining balance handled separately, crucial for high-value spa packages and activities.

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                        PAYMENT FLOW                                   │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

   Guest                    HiLucy                    Stripe
     │                        │                         │
     │  1. Select service     │                         │
     │  ───────────────────▶  │                         │
     │                        │                         │
     │  2. Show deposit UI    │                         │
     │  ◀───────────────────  │                         │
     │                        │                         │
     │  3. Pay deposit (30%)  │                         │
     │  ───────────────────▶  │  4. Create PaymentIntent│
     │                        │  ─────────────────────▶ │
     │                        │                         │
     │                        │  5. payment_intent.id   │
     │                        │  ◀───────────────────── │
     │                        │                         │
     │  6. Confirm deposit    │                         │
     │  ◀───────────────────  │                         │
     │                        │                         │
     │         ...time passes (service delivered)...    │
     │                        │                         │
     │  7. Pay balance (70%)  │                         │
     │  ───────────────────▶  │  8. Charge saved card   │
     │                        │  ─────────────────────▶ │
     │                        │                         │
     │  9. Receipt            │                         │
     │  ◀───────────────────  │                         │

Figure 2: Deposit Payment Sequence

Implementation Details

The deposit system extends WooCommerce's payment gateway architecture with a new WC_Gateway_COD_Deposit class. The balance payment leverages Stripe's saved payment methods, allowing us to charge the remaining amount after service delivery without requiring the guest to re-enter card details.

3. Activity Products REST API

We built a complete CRUD API for activity products, enabling the staff manager dashboard to create, update, and list activities programmatically.

Endpoints

• GET /hilucy/v1/activity-products: List activities with pagination & filters
• POST /hilucy/v1/activity-products: Create new activity product
• PUT /hilucy/v1/activity-products/{id}: Update existing activity
• DELETE /hilucy/v1/activity-products/{id}: Delete activity

Activity Finder Shortcode

Alongside the API, we shipped a Vue.js-powered Activity Finder component that hotel staff can embed on any page using [activity_finder category="spa,wellness" columns="3"]. The component fetches from our REST API and renders a filterable grid of activities with real-time search, category filtering, and responsive layouts.

4. Multi-Currency Price Display

For our Mexico-based properties, we implemented inline MXN pricing alongside USD. Guests see both currencies without navigating away or using a currency switcher.

Result: $125.71 USD (MXN 2,200)

5. Test Infrastructure Improvements

We significantly improved our CI/CD pipeline with better test reporting and reliability:

• 📊 Allure Reports: Beautiful test reports with screenshots, step-by-step traces, and failure analysis published to tests.dev.hilucy.com
• 🥒 Cucumber BDD: Fixed parallel execution issues causing lost scenarios. Tests now run reliably with JUnit formatter.
• ⏱️ Resilient Assertions: Added timeouts and retry logic to waitForLoadState calls preventing flaky test failures.
• 📱 WhatsApp Verification: Split check-in verification into separate template assertions for granular test coverage.

What's Next

This week's work lays the foundation for several upcoming features:

• Automated Refunds: Using saved payment methods to process partial refunds for cancelled bookings
• AI-Generated Activity Descriptions: Leveraging our LangGraph infrastructure to auto-generate SEO-optimized product descriptions
• Real-Time Currency Rates: Moving from static conversion to live exchange rate API integration
• Staff Performance Dashboard: Aggregating activity bookings, deposits collected, and guest satisfaction scores

Want to learn more? Our AI concierge Lucy is available 24/7 to answer questions about activities, spa services, and local recommendations. Message us on WhatsApp to experience the technology firsthand.

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Technical Summary

• AI Workflow System: ai-workflow-*.php (4 files). Monday GraphQL, Claude API, WP-Cron
• Deposit Payments: stripe/*.php (3 files). Stripe PaymentIntents, WooCommerce
• Activity API: hilucy-manager-endpoints.php. WP REST API, WooCommerce Products
• Activity Finder: activity-finder.* (3 files). Vue.js, REST API, CSS Grid
• Multi-Currency: price-display.php. WooCommerce Filters
• Test Infrastructure: tests/integration/* (8 files). Playwright, Cucumber, Allure

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HiLucy Engineering
Building the future of hospitality, one commit at a time.

Waseem Gorgi (Tech Lead) · Phil (Founder & Head of Operations) · Jason (Business Development) · Lucy (CEO)