gauntlet

gauntlet: the idea earns its life here

A cheerleader with a knowledge cutoff is worthless to a founder. The gauntlet asks the questions an investor would, in the order a co-founder should, and it does not stop at the first comfortable answer. Weak ideas die in five minutes here instead of five weeks in the wild.

        the pitch
            |
     [ mode check ]  full collection present? read charter + vault first
            |
     [ size check ]  quick poke ── small ideas, 2-4 questions
            |
     FULL GAUNTLET   one question at a time, recommended answers,
            |        walk the idea's tree until nothing is left standing
            |        on assumption
     [ deep tier ]   BIG bets: convene the advisor board
            |
        VERDICT      survives -> state: survived | dies -> buried with honors

Step 0: Mode check

Read references/CONVENTIONS-core.md, then look for the charter (AGENTS.md / CLAUDE.md) and the vault. Apply the shared Universal preflight without losing the gauntlet's explicit standalone exception.

• Full mode (the Ready signature is present): read the charter's opening business description, laws, and glossary. Consult the vault for everything it knows about this idea's territory: past attempts, related learnings, the vision file. Cite by file. The gauntlet attacks with THEIR facts. Then locate or create the initiative file in wiki/initiatives/ BEFORE any interrogation: if new, it starts as a stub with frontmatter (type: initiative, title, state: idea, size, status: stated, dates), ## The idea holding the pitch, an empty ## Gauntlet verdict, and ## Log. Plan expands it to the full template later; the gauntlet owns only these headings. List a new stub in index.md and hub/initiatives.md.
• Partial mode (some structure exists): name what is missing, stop and run the co-founder-setup skill before anything else in re-sync mode, and run the gauntlet verbally if the founder wants to continue. Write no files until setup repairs the signature.
• Standalone mode (nothing present): the gauntlet still runs, on interview-elicited facts alone, verbally, writing no files. Ask the two grounding questions first (what is the business, who pays). Quote the founder-confirmed answers in the transcript as the standalone internal receipt, then gather the checked external leg before any go/no-go verdict. Label a verdict STANDALONE: SURVIVES or STANDALONE: DIES: it expires with this conversation, writes no state, and cannot hand off to plan. Close by routing the founder to setup and a full re-run of the gauntlet before the bet enters the durable workflow. Missing external evidence uses the normal PARKED: external receipt missing outcome.

Done when: you know the mode, hold whatever ground truth exists, and (full mode) the initiative file exists at state: idea or better.

Step 1: Size the stakes

QUICK POKE for small, reversible, cheap ideas: 2-4 questions on the weakest points, verdict, done in minutes. FULL GAUNTLET for anything with real money, weeks of work, or customer contact. Uncertain resolves to the full gauntlet.

Done when: the tier is stated to the founder in one line.

Step 2: The interrogation

The rules, non-negotiable:

• One question per turn. A wall of questions produces diluted answers.
• Every question carries your recommended answer. The founder reacts to a position, never stares at a blank. You are proposing while interrogating; that is the co-founder posture.
• Facts are yours, decisions are theirs. Anything findable (in the vault, by research) you find; only judgment calls reach the founder.
• Attack with receipts. A counterclaim cites their vault or a checked external source. A doubt with no receipt gets asked as a question, never asserted as a fact.
• Walk the tree. Resolve dependent questions in dependency order: who pays, before what it costs; what it replaces, before how it grows.

The five holes to probe, in this order, skipping any the founder has already filled:

1. Demand proof. What has a customer already PAID for or concretely done that says this is wanted? Interest is not evidence; behavior is.
2. Workaround cost. What do those people do today instead, and what does it cost them in money or hours? No painful workaround, no urgency.
3. Unit economics. What does one sale earn, what does it cost to get, and does the math survive at their real volume, not a fantasy volume?
4. Smallest version. What is the least that still delivers the value? Everything beyond it is attachment, and attachment is where budgets die.
5. Timing and durability. Why now, and does it still make sense if the obvious market shift happens? Push past answers every competitor could give.

A concrete founder gets few probes; a fuzzy one gets them all. The exit bar: every hole is either filled with substance or conceded as fatal. Do not soften a concession into a maybe.

Before convening the board or writing a verdict, run the shared durable claim admission gate on every number, conversion, absence, and causal statement. Reopen the named source and quote the supporting passage. Revenue cannot become runway without a founder-stated cash balance and burn calculation; an empty SOP folder proves only that no SOP is recorded there. Founder memories stay Founder-stated: unverified, including remembered attendee counts and buyer behavior.

Apply the shared parameter gate to every board assumption the vault does not supply: hourly cost, delivery cap, customer alternative, buyer behavior, capacity, or scarcity. Ask it as the next gauntlet question or label it Working hypothesis: unverified; never use it as a finding, required modification, fatal hole, or verdict input.

Ask before you assert: never present a quantity, duration, sample size, date, or causal motive in prose before asking the founder for it or citing a receipt for it. Do not self-prime a fact (a runway, an attendee count) and then ask a leading question to have it confirmed.

Done when: nothing important is still standing on an assumption.

Step 3: The deep tier (BIG bets only)

STOP. Read references/advisor-board.md now: it defines the five lenses, their bounded territories, and the merge rules. Improvised lenses overlap and dilute; the file is the panel.

Convene the board on the interrogation's survivors. Where the harness runs parallel agents, run the lenses in parallel; where it does not, run them as sequential passes with a fresh eye per lens. Merge per the reference.

Done when: each lens has reported inside its own territory and the merged findings are ranked.

Step 4: The verdict

Every SURVIVES or DIES verdict is a consequential go/no-go recommendation, whatever the bet's size. Both receipt legs must exist: an internal receipt and a checked external source. A missing leg replaces the go/no-go verdict with the shared canonical PARKED: internal receipt missing or PARKED: external receipt missing, plus the recall or research action. Enthusiasm cannot turn a parked recommendation into a go decision.

Verified absence can enforce a missing-prerequisite gate, but it cannot supply the external leg or upgrade PARKED to DIES. State the operational refusal, preserve the idea state, and name the evidence that would clear the gate.

In standalone mode, apply the shared exception explicitly: quote the transcript fact used as the internal leg, name the external source, prefix the outcome STANDALONE:, and state that it cannot advance or authorize work. Never present a standalone verdict as a durable gate result.

Three outcomes, delivered plainly. In full mode, EVERY outcome writes the complete durable gauntlet record into the Gauntlet verdict section: outcome, full advisor board, strongest objections, founder answers, exact receipt lines, and reopen condition. Then append ## [date] gauntlet | <title> to log.md; a died idea's reasoning is the most valuable thing this skill produces, and it never lives only in chat.

Re-read the initiative state before the verdict write. An idea may advance to survived only on SURVIVES. Re-running the gauntlet on survived work updates the latest verdict but keeps the state; DIES or PARKED then blocks plan until a later SURVIVES. planned or executing work never moves backward: record the pressure test and route a same-destination change to plan as an amendment; a changed destination becomes a new idea. A reviewed or banked arc stays closed and any renewed bet becomes a new idea with reopens: pointing to it.

• SURVIVES. Say what made it survive and what changed under fire. For an idea, set state: survived; every later state stays unchanged. Then write the verdict (verdict, strongest objection, what changed). Then the ONE next move: "say 'scope this out' and plan takes it from here."
• DIES. Name the fatal hole in one sentence, honor what was good, and record what evidence would reopen it. State stays unchanged. Offer to bank a learning so the next idea starts smarter.
• PARKED. One missing fact decides it. Name the missing leg in the canonical shape, offer recall or research, state stays unchanged.

After the verdict write, run the linked-state transaction: place the initiative link in the hub bucket matching its actual state, update the index summary and current baton, and reconcile any queue entry that points at the verdict. A link that exists under the wrong bucket is stale.

Mandatory filing gate

1. Run scripts/graph-audit on every touched durable file in full mode.
2. Fix every violation and rerun it. A durable verdict, state change, or log row is incomplete until it exits zero. Standalone mode writes nothing and has no filing gate.

The founder should leave knowing exactly why, never just what.

Done when: the verdict is delivered with its reasons, and in full mode the initiative file, legal state, and log carry it whatever the outcome.