One verb, one shape
A persona is always six fields and a ledger; a decision always carries a falsifier with a date; evidence is always one signal, graded. The shape is what lets a page be a read instead of a rewrite.
the shipped skills' templates
Organization
Every record has a home, a shape, and one verb that writes it.
This is the part of BOSS that does the filing so the founder never has to. Nothing lives in the chat: what you say becomes a record in a folder, in a fixed shape, with an id and a status line — and the playbook, the design space and the board are reads of those folders, never documents anyone maintains. Change the work and the pages change; there is nothing else to update.
74records on disk
18folders under
docs/21verbs that write them
4id classes — IDEA · FEAT · DEC · EVID
The four rules it keeps
The status line is the truth
captured · ready · building · shipped · deferred · dropped — a word on the record's own frontmatter. The board reads it; nobody drags a card. A parked idea carries its re-open trigger in the same line.
docs/IDS.md · boss board
Folders arrive as the venture earns them
Quickstart
15 verbs · lays down docs/evidence/ docs/ideas/ docs/source/ docs/team/ · its verbs write docs/decisions/ docs/personas/
MVP
24 verbs · its verbs write docs/ docs/ideas/ docs/competition/ docs/dossier/ docs/brand/ docs/design/ docs/design/components/ docs/design/icons/ docs/design/library/ docs/product/ docs/health/ docs/measure/ docs/trust/
V1
2 verbs · adds no folder of its own
Scale
1 verbs · adds no folder of its own
stages/*/template · read at build time
Nothing is written without a yes, nothing is filled from imagination
Drop a deck in docs/source/ and BOSS says which records it could fill and writes each only when you say so. A field nobody answered stays a hole on the page — a confident answer arrived at with no information is worse than a blank.
/import · the playbook's holes
The idea, and what you decided
One living doc per idea, a canvas that pressure-tests it, a build contract when it earns one, and every load-bearing call with the signal that would prove it wrong.
docs/ideas/
/idea/canvas/spec
IDEA-NNN — a living idea doc with a sharpening current shape and an append-only capture log; the canvas as thirteen cells; FEAT-NNN — the build contract with acceptance criteria and the paths that must not break
13 files · FEAT-001-the-cover-flow.md · FEAT-002-the-monday-view.md · FEAT-003-pay-for-cover.md · FEAT-004-the-register-import.md · FEAT-005-quiet-hours.md
docs/decisions/
/decide
DEC-NNN — context, decision, why, and a falsifier with a date; superseded, never edited
4 files · DEC-001-office-first.md · DEC-002-phone-first.md · DEC-003-no-tracking.md · DEC-004-brand-anchor.md
The people — real and drawn
Who it is for as a persona with a ledger that says how much of it is real, and what real people actually said or did, graded — a compliment never reads as a receipt.
docs/personas/
/persona
one persona per file: who, context, jobs, pains, values, what you don't know yet — and a ledger, synthetic vs real, that moves as evidence lands
2 files · marta.md · priya.md
docs/evidence/
/evidence/interview
EVID-NNN — one signal per file, dated, graded stated-pain → observed-behavior → commitment, tied to the assumption it bears on
4 files · EVID-001.md · EVID-002.md · EVID-003.md · EVID-004.md
docs/team/
boss team add
one person per file — the specific thing seen, built, sold or lived; what they bring and don't; a role you need and don't have, written plainly
6 files · marta.md · marta.svg · missing-designer.md · ola.md · ola.svg
The field, and what you dropped in
Rivals with a checked date and the honest "why they might win"; your own decks and reports, dated on the way in, so a figure from March is never a fact about today.
docs/competition/
/comp-eval
the field as one table, one file per rival with where it breaks and how they do it, every row with a checked date
4 files · caresheet.md · phone-tree.md · shiftwise.md
docs/source/
/import
your own material — a deck, a report, a saved page — dated in the name; /import reads it and offers the records it could fill
3 files · 2026-06-02-register-extract.csv · 2026-07-15-owner-survey-notes.md
docs/dossier/
/consult
the mentors' positions, dated — the capital mentor's not-yet with its reason is what the playbook quotes as the ask
1 file · business-2026-09-05.md
How it looks and sounds
The brand as a living doc that starts nascent; the design system as tokens, a style guide, components with usage pages, patterns and flows — each with the decision that chose it.
docs/brand/
/landing
the mark, when there is a file — the brand doc itself lives beside the devlog
1 file · mark.svg
docs/design/
/design-tokens-init/design-review
tokens.json, the style guide, components, patterns, flows, the reviews — the design space is a read of these
6 files · COMPONENTS.md · FLOWS.md · PATTERNS.md · STYLE_GUIDE.md · tokens.json
docs/design/components/
/design-review
one usage page per component, written at its review — when to use it, when not
14 files · AskCard.md · Button.md · CarerRow.md · ConfirmDialog.md · EmptyState.md
docs/design/icons/
/design-review
the icon set as SVG files; the design page draws them from here and copies them as a sprite
6 files · ask.svg · asked.svg · clock.svg · covered.svg · kettle.svg
docs/product/
/spec
JOURNEY.md — the flows as a founder would walk them, written at the first flow
1 file · JOURNEY.md
How it is going
After the first user: one activation metric, one retention curve, a dated health verdict that defaults to pre-fit, and the trust page a buyer can read. The story so far, one entry a session.
docs/health/
/health
HEALTH-<date> — a verdict, dated: pre-fit by default, the curve when there is one, the one next move
1 file · HEALTH-2026-09-07.md
docs/measure/
/health
MEASURE-<date> — the one activation metric, the one retention curve, at most ten events, the humane note
1 file · MEASURE-2026-08-30.md
docs/trust/
/trust
TRUST.md — what you collect, who processes it, how someone reaches you about their data; one honest paragraph
1 file · TRUST.md
docs/
/log/close
the devlog (what landed, what surprised you, one entry a session), the brand doc, the resume the next session reads first
4 files · BRAND.md · IDS.md · RESUME.md · devlog.md
The machine
What BOSS installed for the host and the state it keeps for itself — local, never in the repo, and never the founder's to maintain.
.claude/
boss newboss unlock
agents, skills, hooks and rules for the host — laid down by mode, only what the venture has earned
1 file · settings.json
.boss/
boss
the stamp, the config, the conscience's read on the venture, the rendered pages — machine state, gitignored
6 files · board.html · config.json · design.html · manifest.json · playbook.html