Kettlewick
How it learns

What Kettlewick found out, in the order it found it out — read from the records.

BOSS doesn't grade a venture; it keeps the trail honest. Each block below is a record class doing the thing it exists for: evidence climbing a ladder, a persona getting less made-up, a decision failing its own test, a brand learning the words real people use, and a health read turning into the next idea.

Evidence climbed the ladder — 3 of 3 rungs reached

  1. 2026-05-20 stated-pain three owners described the Monday cover call unprompted
  2. 2026-06-04 stated-pain an owner said the hour is the job she hates most
  3. 2026-08-30 observed-behavior an owner covered a Monday visit from the school gate
  4. 2026-09-05 commitment one owner pre-paid a month before the card form existed

stated-pain is what someone said; observed-behavior is what you watched them do; commitment is what they gave up — money, time, a name.

docs/evidence · four records, graded

Marta got less made-up — synthetic 40% · real 60%

The persona started 100% synthetic — a guess with a name. Each real conversation shifted the ledger and left a dated line:

  1. 2026-06-04 enriched from three calls: the schedule is not the pain, the cover call is.
  2. 2026-08-30 enriched from EVID-003: she covered from the school gate; "keep out of the way" became a value.
docs/personas/marta.md · Notable refactors

A decision failed its own test — DEC-001

Office-first cover — Build the cover flow for the office screen first; the phone waits.

Falsifier — If three owners cover from a phone before August, this was wrong.

Outcome: wrong — owners cover from phones; superseded by DEC-002

docs/decisions/DEC-001-office-first.md · superseded by DEC-002

The brand learned real words — 3 rows, from evidence

The brand doc starts nascent and only grows from things that actually happened — never from brainstorming. What each one said about the brand:

  1. 2026-06-04 the verb is the brand; the product name isn't
  2. 2026-08-30 the right three is the promise people repeat
  3. 2026-07-15 voice: the owner's words over ours (was: formal and complete) — official wording read as being told off
docs/BRAND.md · What we've learned

A health read became the next idea — 2026-09-07

Nine owners on since 2026-08-28; six filled a visit a second Monday; one has paid. Pre-fit, honestly — n is under ten, so this is a read, not a curve, and the next move is to watch the three who didn't fill twice.

Pre-fit by default. At n under ten, the verdict is talk to them, never a score.

docs/health/HEALTH-2026-09-07.md · docs/devlog.md
The conscience, run against these records

The shipped hook was run on this exact tree while this page was built — the same .claude/hooks/conscience.js an install fires on every prompt. It returns a signal, not a sentence: which loop, which moment, how confident, and the file facts behind it. At the founder's desk the model turns that into one spare line, once; here you see the schema. Cohort read from the project: non-tech-founder.

Loop: verification (MVP) — unverified · high confidence

  • 4 matches in 6 files (needs 1)
  • 6117 matches in 18 files (needs 1)
  • missing: .boss/smoke.json
  • nothing matching docs/red-team/RT-*.md
stalled.boss/loops/verification-loop.md · run 2026-10-05

Loop: unseen since (Quickstart) — a lot built since anyone last saw it — focus · medium confidence

  • nothing matching docs/evidence/EVID-*.md
stalled.boss/loops/unseen-since-loop.md · run 2026-10-05

Loop: extraction (MVP) — PRINCIPLE #1's own discipline — capture · high confidence

  • 6 matches in 1 file (needs 3)
  • exit not met
stalled.boss/loops/extraction-loop.md · run 2026-10-05
And the verbs arrived as they were earned

Quickstart gives a founder the capture-and-talk-to-one-person loop and nothing else; MVP adds the build, the ship and the measure. A mode is unlocked by the founder, when the canvas holds — not by a calendar.

Quickstart

Light idea capture: describe an idea, shape it, keep it — a product lead, a coder and a venture mentor, a canvas to pressure-test it and a conversation with a real person (either order), and a conscience that notices capturing without testing.

/welcome/boss/import/idea/prototype/canvas/pretotype/evidence/interview/decide/sunset/persona/read-repo/feedback/boss-sync
stages/L0-quickstart/manifest.json

MVP

Ready to build the first working version: the spec convention, the smoke gate, the devlog and /close, the tester and the first mentors. The after-launch verbs arrive when a FEAT ships; the AI-cost set when the app first calls a model.

/spec/smoke/log/close/evals/design-tokens-init/ai-cost/ai-failure-states/extract/drift-deep/revalidate/judge-traces/consult/red-team/practice/ship/landing/onboard/roadmap/trust/health/money/design-review/comp-eval
stages/L1-mvp/manifest.json