Field Notes - Oct 30, '25

Executive Signals

• Slices beat suites: value arrives when writebacks land, not at perfection
• Cheapest adequate wins: route by task, pin spend per action
• Mirrors hide coupling: decouple integrations, budget for unavoidable sync lag
• Failures are features: detect fast, cap retries, escalate to humans
• APIs are contracts: freeze interfaces early to avoid cascading rework

CEO

Define Phase-One Value and Guardrails

Value materializes when the submission loop runs end-to-end and writes back to the system of record, even if status checks and decline handling come later. Freeze a stable API contract early, instrument logs and alerts before scaling across brands, and treat compliance deadlines as dollar risk to justify human failover.

• Approve phase-one scope: consume need, submit, write back, observable
• Mandate a cost-per-action SLO for each submission step
• Require a documented human takeover path after capped retries

Product

Ship the Submission Loop First

Release the “submit + write back” slice per brand or in small batches before layering status polling and decline flows. This pulls value forward, surfaces real integration edges sooner, and reduces rework if upstream systems differ. Stabilize the API to the source system so downstream product logic stays untouched as you iterate.

• Define “done” for phase one: consume need, submit, write back, observable
• Productionize logs and alerts before adding more brands
• Freeze the external API contract to contain change

Engineering

Mirror Table Decoupling, Latency Budget

Let the CRM push a curated mirror table into Quickbase and have automation read/write there to shrink integration surface and keep non-CRM paths open. The hidden cost is stale data: validate the sync SLA and design start conditions and retries that respect it.

• Measure real sync lag; set an acceptable threshold (e.g., ≤5 minutes)
• If lag exceeds threshold, delay job starts or queue idempotent retries
• Standardize naming in code to avoid confusion as systems evolve

Route Tasks to the Cheapest Adequate Model

Use the lowest-cost model that meets accuracy for deterministic form-fill and simple transforms, and reserve heavier models for analysis like parsing declines or summarizing reasons. Keep models behind a thin interface so routing can change without touching business logic.

• Implement a model factory with config-only switches
• Maintain per-task acceptance tests; promote only at target cost
• Guardrail spend with a cost-per-action SLO

Treat Errors as First-Class

Silent failures in compliance workflows carry five-figure downside per account. Capture evidence, alert immediately, cap retries with backoff, and push a “failed—needs human” status into the source system after N attempts. Track detection and recovery times and prioritize jobs by deadline proximity.

• On first error: log, screenshot, and post to a dedicated Slack channel
• Cap retries (e.g., 3–5); after cap, auto-set failure for ops takeover
• Track MTTD/MTTR; add deadline-aware prioritization and a secrets-change sentinel