Portal Factory · the board
Are we going to make the demo?
Progress
How far along
- B1 reviewed & timed
- B2 end-to-end walk
- B3 live domain
- B4 a new portal
- B5 first payment
The demo date, September 24, has passed — waiting on Alyssa for a new one. A factory rather than a demo by October 1. A step half done counts as half.
What is in the way
- Step 6: You review it — and we time itBig goal 1 — the review-hours number existsAlyssa · waiting on a decision
The 13 steps
-
Step 1: Zero-cost draft loop
Done ClaudeDone when A shape proposal is produced and gated with $0 API spend
Every plan for a course is now checked for shape before a single dollar is spent.
-
Step 2: Fix the ruler
Done ClaudeDone when A 60×2-minute run refuses; each gate proven to fail first
Length limits for each kind of lesson, a five-minute floor, cover pages treated as furniture, and a check that the parts are balanced. Three wrong versions of one rule were caught and removed the same night.
-
Step 3: Persist phase gates; chips instead of counts
Done ClaudeDone when Gate subtitles visible in a browser
Seen in a real browser, light and dark, 22:39 Sept 10.
-
Step 4: M60 + spend-cap metering
Done ClaudeDone when 4 tests green; coach runs on MK11
The practice spending cap now counts roleplay only. It aims at 18 turns and allows 4 more before it stops.
-
Step 5: Regenerate MK11 Onboarding — 24 of 38 written; 14 wait on MK11
In progress MK11 (the client)Done when ~30 lessons, ≥5 min each, opens with an orientation
THE WRITING RAN AND FINISHED on the night of Sept 12, against the current ruler — outline@12 landed that same day and no lesson prompt has changed since, so there is no newer ruler to run against. 38 lessons planned: 24 written and fact-checked, 3 flagged below the word floor for the client's expert, 11 refused by the free pre-flight. $16.32 billed, inside the $18 cap. WHY IT IS NOT FINISHED: MK11's own documents do not contain their sales training, so the 14 outstanding lessons have no source to be written from. Re-running them costs about $1–2 to be refused again for the same reason — the COO refused exactly that on Sept 19 and the overnight loop refused it again on Sept 20 before spending anything. WHAT FINISHES IT: the letter asking MK11 for the missing material, written on Sept 14 and waiting on Alyssa's word to send. Until it lands this step cannot move, and no amount of money moves it. The title used to read 'Regenerate MK11 Onboarding against the new ruler' with the owner as Claude, which is why the owner read it on Sept 20 as work we had not done. A step held by the client looked identical to a step someone forgot. UPDATE Oct 13: the 'MK11 Gold Standard' copy, 24 lessons, is now published on production and reachable on MK11's own address. Publishing had been refused because the sample-bill module held only reference material; on Oct 13 the electric-bill lesson card was moved into the gas module and the empty module removed, with an audit trail. The 14 outstanding lessons of the original 38 still wait on MK11's missing material. UPDATE Oct 18 night: MK11's lesson text was corrected live (21 lessons, 184 fixes), and 8 of 9 new lessons were written on the laptop at a cost of about $2 by our ledger; they are not live until every check passes. the longer story →
-
Step 6: You review it — and we time it
Waiting on a decision AlyssaDone when Big goal 1 — the review-hours number exists
Follows item 5.
-
Step 7: Agent roles + morning brief
Done ClaudeDone when 8 role files; a brief you actually read
8 role files exist; the morning brief for Sept 11 was written and handed over.
-
Step 8: Factory UI: one bucket per client
Done ClaudeDone when You can run a portal without me
Test clients are hidden unless you ask to see them. The clients page lists every client with its stage and the next step, and each client has a page of its own with counts, links straight into the course, and the minutes each lesson takes.
-
Step 9: Design pass: brand on every surface; critic loop
Done ClaudeDone when No page ships default-styled
Done on Oct 25, 10:18 PM ET. The Oct 13 brand and design audit (7 bugs fixed on the Gold portal) and the Oct 14 to Oct 22 releases are live, and so is the final larger-text pass (release 120): the dark sample-bill box on the exam, the roster scrolling inside its card, the exam start page and sidebar at larger text, the lesson page with the Read-aloud bar kept at larger text, and the square logo plate in light mode. The design reviewer wrote SHIP and the accessibility officer wrote PASS (not a certification) after five review rounds, Alyssa reviewed the screenshots and approved, and a walker looked at six of the changes on the live site signed in as her. Not verified on the live site: the “All announcements” link (no announcement is showing today), the real sample-bill picture on the live exam (needs her OK for a production read), and signed-in pages at phone width. Still open, not blockers: two narrow-column spots at the largest text size (fix later, her call), four parked brand-audit items (S6, S12, S15, S17) waiting on her yes or no, the Read-aloud bar appearing late, reading restarting when text size changes, and the seat wording. Marked done because the step’s own proof, no page ships default-styled, holds for the pages reviewed; the open items are listed so nobody reads this as zero left.
-
Step 10: Manager + learner end-to-end walk
In progress Claude, then AlyssaDone when Big goal 2 — a learner completes a lesson; a manager sees it
Learner walk passed Sept 6. Manager side walked Sept 12: a completion shows on the roster and the learner page through the real doors. Oct 13: the manager pages were redone in the Spotlight look you picked and are live, and a manager now switches between Learner and Manager view with one sign-in (no extra seat, left out of reports, ends when the manager is deactivated). Dave is set up as the first manager on production. The benchmark itself is still Alyssa walking it. Oct 18 night: the Admin, Manager, Mentor and Learner levels and the MK11 final exam are in build. Oct 22 night: Admin seats (with a top Admin for each portal) passed its security review with fixes made; it waits on Alyssa's deploy OK.
-
Step 11: Deploy to the real domain
Done Alyssa, then ClaudeDone when Big goal 3 — both hostnames resolve
Verified with real requests Sept 13. Update Oct 13 and 14: the MK11 Gold portal is published on its own address, which now ends in '.app' (the old '.com' address forwards to it). After the security release 90 and releases 91 to 93 on Oct 14, the sign-in pages on the live addresses, the health check and the logo route all answer correctly. What this does NOT cover: we have not watched Dave finish setting his own password, and the Quiz Ledger code is on production but switched off.
-
Step 12: Generate a NEW portal end-to-end as proof
Not started ClaudeDone when Big goal 4 — a second client-ready portal from a folder
-
Step 13: First paying client
Done AlyssaDone when Big goal 5 — payment
Alyssa said on Oct 25, 2026: "We got our first paying client." Marked done on her word, because this is her own step. Owner's word, not yet verified against Stripe or our records: the repo names no client and no amount, and the payment counter still reads 0 events (a laptop practice-database reading from Oct 22, not the live site), so nothing here confirms who paid or how much.
Is the code healthy? — 4 numbers, 3 flagged
The factory's own staff screens, which need a staff sign-in no test can perform: markup-proven, never photographed.
Whether a generated course is GOOD. Every gate here is deterministic; taste is the owner's, and the review-hours benchmark has not been run yet.
How these numbers are measured — 1 note
Every number here is measured when the board is rebuilt and names its source. Nothing in this section is typed by hand.
The money numbers are on Money; what changed is on What happened.
That's the plan. Back to Now.