~/writings · field notes

What the work taught me

Notes from running production systems with agents: what broke, what the failure cost, and the check that now catches it. The method these came from is free and installable at traviseric.com/claude-code.

The through-lines / three rules that earned their place

A check you did not run is not a check

The seven ways an agent fakes the word verified

In the kit: docs/SEVEN_CHEAP_LIES.md

Done is a rung, not a checkbox

Built, deployed, works, fed, and what each one costs to prove

Long form In the kit: skills/definition-of-done

Two documents, never one

The paragraph a person carries out, and the cold ground under it

Long form In the kit: docs/ROOM_AND_GROUND.md

Principles / the long forms behind the kit

Short in the repo, long here, same subject.

The public kit carries each of these as a short entry you can install and run. The long form, with the incident that earned it, is here, and each one links the other. Together they stand behind one argument: anyone can build anything now; knowing what to build is the job.

2026-09-127 min read

The Brain and the Heart — why your AI needs both

AI is shaped by what people could measure. Taste is what they could not. Here is the structure I built to give a model both: a Brain that holds the facts and a Heart that holds what moves a person. Two files you can...

Read the long form

In the kitdoc: room and ground skill: room-and-ground philosophy: the machine is a mirror of what could be measured

2026-09-115 min read

Insights harvest — when the advice is already in your repo

A tool read months of my sessions and recommended a list of things to build. Most of them existed. The gap was never invention, it was enforcement.

Read the long form

In the kitdoc: insights

2026-09-036 min read

Definition of Done — the run-truth ladder

Four rungs that say what done actually means — built, deployed, works, fed — and the seven ways I have watched a check lie about which rung it was on.

Read the long form

In the kitskill: definition-of-done doc: seven cheap lies philosophy: the instrument that lies toward caution

2026-08-214 min read

Session closeout — leaving work someone can pick up

Most of what an AI session knows dies when the window closes. The fix is a closeout that ends in one of two named states, with the SHAs and the loose ends written down.

Read the long form

In the kitskill: session-closeout philosophy: the repo already knew

Seven short entries, the reading order, and the mechanisms they produced: philosophy/README.md in the kit

Evidence in the open / field reports

2026-08-224 min read

The Green Path That Checked the Wrong Finish Line

An objective Engineering by Selection Pressure field report about a payment path that looked complete while settlement ownership went unverified—and the shadow control built from the failure.

Read the evidence

2026-08-185 min read

Outbound Choke Points — The Legitimate Gates

Six months of outreach automation ended at queues nothing consumed. Here is how we now tell a legitimate gate from a hedge — and make silent caution impossible.

Read the evidence

All notes / 28 published

2026-10-112 min readSkills and playbooks

Dispatcher

The dispatcher skill, as described in the dispatcher file, is tasked with managing the founder's agent fleet from a single machine by reading every live session and assigning tasks based on permissions. This system is...

A check you did not run is not a check

Done is a rung, not a checkbox

Two documents, never one

Short in the repo, long here, same subject.

The Brain and the Heart — why your AI needs both

Insights harvest — when the advice is already in your repo

Definition of Done — the run-truth ladder

Session closeout — leaving work someone can pick up

Evidence-backed field reports

The Green Path That Checked the Wrong Finish Line

Outbound Choke Points — The Legitimate Gates

Every published note

Dispatcher

Copy Arena — draft, read, refine, launch

signup-doors-walk: every door, including the moment after submit

goal-finder — derive the goals a repo needs to finish

Motion Studio: the video harness

section-pass — one agent per section, the details put in

Restart Board

Enhance the photograph that is there

Recording intake — a day of talking becomes a week of landed work

render-read-fix — verify a generator by reading its real output

Goal Autopilot: the board and the engine

Paid-social video ad, one brief to a paused campaign

Photo rating bench

Doc Registration — make a new doc discoverable

cold-reopen — the check that happens later, cold

Land — verified change, pushed trunk, completed worktree removed

autopilot-scout — find loops & goals to set

heart — write the room, then prove it, then remember what moved them

Ad Campaign Design — the offer comes before the account

Seam check — prove a boundary from the other side

The Brain and the Heart — why your AI needs both

Insights harvest — when the advice is already in your repo

Definition of Done — the run-truth ladder

The Green Path That Checked the Wrong Finish Line

Session closeout — leaving work someone can pick up

Outbound Choke Points — The Legitimate Gates

AI Personality Extension Prophecy

Parallel Generation: The Architecture That Changes Everything

None of this is theory.

A check you did not run is not a check

Done is a rung, not a checkbox

Two documents, never one

Short in the repo, long here, same subject.

The Brain and the Heart — why your AI needs both

Insights harvest — when the advice is already in your repo

Definition of Done — the run-truth ladder

Session closeout — leaving work someone can pick up

Evidence-backed field reports

The Green Path That Checked the Wrong Finish Line

Outbound Choke Points — The Legitimate Gates

Every published note

Dispatcher

Copy Arena — draft, read, refine, launch

signup-doors-walk: every door, including the moment after submit

goal-finder — derive the goals a repo needs to finish

Motion Studio: the video harness

section-pass — one agent per section, the details put in

Restart Board

Enhance the photograph that is there

Recording intake — a day of talking becomes a week of landed work

render-read-fix — verify a generator by reading its real output

Goal Autopilot: the board and the engine

Paid-social video ad, one brief to a paused campaign

Photo rating bench

Doc Registration — make a new doc discoverable

cold-reopen — the check that happens later, cold

Land — verified change, pushed trunk, completed worktree removed

autopilot-scout — find loops & goals to set

heart — write the room, then prove it, then remember what moved them

Ad Campaign Design — the offer comes before the account

Seam check — prove a boundary from the other side

The Brain and the Heart — why your AI needs both

Insights harvest — when the advice is already in your repo

Definition of Done — the run-truth ladder

The Green Path That Checked the Wrong Finish Line

Session closeout — leaving work someone can pick up

Outbound Choke Points — The Legitimate Gates

AI Personality Extension Prophecy