Build Log

Sterling, Scout Pioneer, and a Home for Alloy

October 9, 2026

A third team member for the business side, a bounded experiment that honestly found no opportunity, a landing page that puts every decision in one place, and a correction: Scout's dollar figures were never money.

AlloyScoutSterlingCrowd JamTeam

Pioneer cycles run to the cap (≈$8.09 API-equivalent, not billed)

Pioneer opportunities that cleared the two-evidence bar (a valid result)

55→32.8

KB: Scout's brief, trimmed after it outgrew what Scout could read

commits (Sterling, Pioneer, Home, Crowd Jam analytics, brief fix x2)

Timeline

Charge 1

Sterling

Premise check found ForgeKit LLC already exists; Charge narrowed to regularizing it

Build

Sterling's record and page

Sourced establishment record, operating-agreement draft, Alloy /sterling checklist

Side

Lemon Squeezy reply

Checked bundled songs were original and the live site's state before drafting

Charge 2

Scout Pioneer

Crucible turned a standing 25% split into a capped 4-cycle experiment

Correction

Costs are not money

Zeb: 'if you are running on my claude code usage, you can't know the cost'

Charge 3

Home

One landing page: needs-you inbox, team cards, money, in motion

Run

Pioneer cycles 2-4

Corrections verified in the DB; brief: close this angle

Commit, deploy Alloy, wrap

Found and fixed the truncated-brief bug the last cycle exposed

What shipped

docs/sterling/CHARTER.md — Sterling's identity, scope (business only), authority boundary (no credentials to any bank/payment/filing system), evidence vocabulary, promotion triggers

docs/sterling/operating-agreement-draft.md — single-member Ohio LLC draft including IP assignment to the LLC (draft, not legal advice)

products/alloy/lib/sterling/establishment.ts — sourced establishment record: facts with evidence levels, phased steps, owner questions and decisions, compliance calendar, bank comparison, risks, decision history, next-work queue

products/alloy/app/w/[slug]/sterling/page.tsx + products/alloy/app/sterling/page.tsx — owner-only guided checklist (Where are we / What's next / What do you need from me)

products/scout/lib/domain/operation.ts — Pioneer track caps in startCycle (maxPioneerCycles 4, maxPioneerCostUsd 12), owner-written track events, acquisitionMonthSpend() so Pioneer can't use the main track's monthly budget, compact brief

products/scout/scripts/run-cycle.ts — --track pioneer, Pioneer prompt, Witness-findings-first in every track, cost labeled API-equivalent

products/scout/scout/mcp-server.ts — write_pioneer_brief (Pioneer cycles only), honest cost questions, get_brief size warning

products/scout/scout/CHARTER.md — Pioneer track section (two-evidence-class bar, seven questions) and an Honesty rule that cost figures are not money

products/scout/lib/domain/witness.ts — Witness checks the Pioneer evidence bar

products/scout/tests/domain.test.ts — real-DB test: Pioneer caps, and acquisition refused at its own cap while Pioneer still runs

products/scout/scripts/peek-pioneer.ts, peek-pioneer-brief.ts, peek-brief-size.ts — read-only live checks

products/alloy/app/w/[slug]/scout/pioneer/page.tsx — Scout > Pioneer tab; API-equivalent labels on Scout overview and Activity

products/alloy/app/w/[slug]/home/page.tsx + products/alloy/app/home/page.tsx — Home landing page; root / now redirects there; Home and Sterling nav items

experiments/FretHero/frontend/src/main.jsx — Vercel Web Analytics (@vercel/analytics/react) for Crowd Jam; built, not deployed

Ran Scout Pioneer cycles #9-#12; final Pioneer Opportunity Brief recorded in Scout's DB

“can you prove these costs to me... if you are running on my claude code usage, you can't know the cost... and I don't use the API”
— Zeb, catching that every Scout dollar figure was an API-equivalent estimate