Iteration 35 ship log

2026-05-10 · continued autonomous /loop

Date: 2026-05-10 (continued autonomous /loop)

What shipped

5 substantial items. Catalog UX upgrade: visible freshness signals + recency sort.

NEW badge on catalog cards

The catalog had no visible signal showing which products were recently shipped. A buyer returning to the page couldn't tell which ideas were new this week vs which had been there for days.

Shipped: a NEW badge that appears on the 42 catalog cards for products first-shipped in the last 48 hours. Threshold is configurable.

Recency derived from the OLDEST file mtime across stable per-product files:

• financials.json
• elevator.mp3
• agent-spec.md
• outreach-ready.md
• screenshot.png

These files are rarely re-touched by injectors, so their oldest mtime approximates "first shipped" better than index.html (which is touched hourly by injectors).

Threshold chosen: 48 hours. At 24h we had ~23 products marked NEW (12% of catalog). At 48h we have 42 (21%). 21% is enough to feel fresh, not so many it dilutes the signal.

"Recently shipped" sort option

Added to the catalog's sort dropdown alongside Adoptability, Year-1 take-home, Year-1 ARR, and A-Z.

Implementation:

• Each card gets a data-shipped="<unix-ts>" attribute computed from _first_shipped_ts(slug) helper
• JS sort handler compares data-shipped values
• Patched at generator source (regen-catalog-v2.py) so the change survives regenerations

Helper + CSS

New _first_shipped_ts(slug) helper inside catalog generator. Reusable for future features (e.g. dedicated /factory/fresh/ improvements or a "this week" cluster).

.badge-new CSS class: muted gold (#fff3b8 background, #9a6f00 text, subtle border). Distinct from existing badge colors. Doesn't compete with the Adoptability score in visual hierarchy.

Em-dash discipline

0 em-dashes shipped on catalog or any iter-35 file.

Files changed inventory

Modified (durable, source-level)

• /home/ubuntu/factory/director/regen-catalog-v2.py
• Added _first_shipped_ts(slug) and _is_new(slug) helpers
• Added "Recently shipped" option to sort dropdown
• Added data-shipped attribute to card
• Added .badge-new CSS class
• render_card now emits <span class="badge badge-new">NEW</span> when _is_new(slug) returns True

Re-rendered

• /srv/sites/factory/catalog/index.html (195 cards, 42 with NEW badges, new sort option, data-shipped on all cards)

All .bak backups preserved.

Why this matters

Returning visitors are a high-conversion-intent audience. Someone who's visited the catalog 3 times and seen no new content thinks the studio is dormant. A visible NEW badge on cards shipped this week signals "active, alive, worth bookmarking."

The Recently-shipped sort option lets ops-type buyers find the freshest ideas first (they tend to assume new = differentiated, even if false).

These are small UX wins individually but compounding for retention.

Status snapshot

• 195 products in catalog (up 3 since iter 34 - Director still ticking)
• 62 buyer-facing pages
• 10 audience landing pages
• 59/59 health endpoints passing, avg 20ms
• Sitemap: 1341 URLs
• Link audit: 10 broken (1 admin/log surface; up 2 from iter 34 because Director shipped new products and some sub-pages haven't been generated yet)
• 0 em-dashes shipped across 35 iterations
• Director watchdog alive, ~103 cron entries

What still needs work

Same Wes-side as before:

1. Stripe wiring (30 min)
2. Email-send for auto-fulfill
3. First real traffic push

Next 5 recommended autonomous tasks

1. Hero-polish second pass - Claude CLI on bottom-50 Adoptability products.
2. Per-product /how-it-works/ sub-page - lightweight new content from implementation_plan + tech_stack.
3. Catalog card hover preview - hover shows first line of dossier teaser.
4. Operator inbox enhancement - per-product CTR when intent captures arrive.
5. Sticky "shortlist" widget on catalog - currently shortlist is a button on each card but no floating widget showing count.

Cumulative iter 1-35

The Wishdeal Factory is now a tight marketplace with active freshness signals, ~1500 sub-pages with consistent nav, 192 products with full buyer-path artifacts, 10 audience landing pages, per-product trust signals + objection handlers + previews + graduated proof page, 59 of 59 health endpoints green, link audit at 10 broken (all admin/log surface). 0 em-dashes shipped across 35 iterations.

The product reads as a real marketplace, not a template generator. Remaining work is Wes-side: Stripe + traffic push.