Iteration 80 ship log

2026-05-14 · push mode, 30-min cadence, MILESTONE ITER 80

Date: 2026-05-14 (push mode, 30-min cadence, MILESTONE ITER 80)

What shipped (4 substantive items)

This is iter 80 of the autonomous loop. The catalog is in maintenance + new-feature mode. Today's ships are smaller but durable.

Ship 1: 4:30am daily audit cron VERIFIED FIRED

The audit-fakeproof.py cron scheduled in iter 70 had its first run this morning at 04:30 PDT. Log file /home/ubuntu/factory/logs/fakeproof-audit.log now exists (1100 bytes, modified May 14 04:30). Last lines show the audit ran and reported the same 9 soft / 0 hard findings that the manual runs show.

Durability proven:

• The audit tool exists.
• The cron fires on schedule.
• The tool produces output to a log file.
• The 0-hard-findings state is stable across runs.

This closes out the iter 70 "wire audit cron + monitor over 24 hours" queue item. The full audit cycle (build tool, integrate into bulk-gen + manual workflow, schedule daily cron, verify cron fires) is complete.

Ship 2: OG image for /factory/quality-report/

Extended regen-og-images.py with a new entry: page-quality-report.png. Generated via ImageMagick. Title: "The quality report we make public on ourselves." Subtitle: "Live audit dashboard. 0 fabrications. 72 health endpoints. 10 content invariants."

74 KB PNG. 17 total OG cards now (was 16).

Source-fix in regen-quality-report.py: changed og:image reference from methodology.png to page-quality-report.png. Future cron regens preserve the dedicated OG. Verified live.

Ship 3: /methodology/ cross-link to /quality-report/

Same pattern as iter 74's methodology → cron-status cross-link. Added to the methodology FAQ on "What happens when a generator silently produces broken output?":

See the content audit: /factory/quality-report/ shows live health checks, fake-proof audit status, and the 10 content invariants the system defends. Regenerates every 30 minutes.

A buyer reading methodology now has one-click paths to BOTH transparency surfaces (cron-status + quality-report).

Ship 4: Spot-audit on essay/idea counts

Checked both /about-the-builder/ and /honest/ for stale counts. Both are current:

• /about-the-builder/: "Nine operator essays totaling ~16,500 words" with the latest essay titles listed (skip-these-dossiers + seventy-fabrications added in iters 69+71)
• /honest/: "produced 238 idea kits, all of which now have operator-voice landing pages with no skeleton-broken content"

No drift. The source-fix patterns from iters 62-63 are holding.

Files changed inventory

Modified (source-level, durable)

• /home/ubuntu/factory/director/regen-og-images.py (+page-quality-report entry)
• /home/ubuntu/factory/director/regen-quality-report.py (og:image URL updated)
• /srv/sites/factory/methodology/index.html (cross-link to /quality-report/ added)

New

• /srv/sites/factory/og/page-quality-report.png (74 KB)

Status snapshot

• 238 products, 0 broken pages, 0 fake-proof violations
• 9 essays (~16,500 words) + 17 OG images (added quality-report)
• 8 high-trust pages depth-passed + 7 OG-equipped
• 26 hand-polished products
• 10 content invariants defended at surface+source AND surfaced on /quality-report/
• 3 public transparency surfaces (changelog, cron-status, quality-report) all cross-linked from /methodology/
• audit-fakeproof.py: 0 hard findings, daily cron at 4:30am VERIFIED FIRED today
• stripe-webhook.py skeleton ready for Wes
• 72/72 health endpoints, 2315 sitemap URLs
• 30 min cadence active

Cumulative iter 1-80 summary

The 80-iter arc has produced:

Catalog state: 238 products, 0 broken, 0 fabrications, 26 hand-polished, ~217 bulk-gen at "operator voice good enough" quality.

Content surfaces: 9 essays totaling ~16,500 operator-voice words, 17 OG share cards, 3 public transparency dashboards (changelog/cron-status/quality-report), 8 high-trust foundational pages, /start-here/ for first-time visitors.

Source durability: 15+ generators source-fixed across iters 62-79. audit-fakeproof.py running daily at 4:30am. _bulk_gen.py with post-audit reject + strengthened prompt. em-dash sweep every 15 min catching both Unicode and HTML-entity forms.

Content invariants: 10 defended at surface+source levels. Every iter's audit confirms zero new violations.

Wes-blocker prep: Stripe wiring notes + 213-line webhook handler skeleton, reducing path-to-first-unlock to ~20 min Wes-time.

Throughput: Recent iters at 30-min cadence ship 3-4 substantive things per iter. Iter 79 added a new transparency surface (/quality-report/) in a single iter. Audit-before-shipping pattern has saved ~3 iters worth of duplicate work over iters 74-79.

Running queue (top 5 for iter 81)

1. Cross-link /quality-report/ from /factory/honest/ (similar pattern; the honest page is the natural place to point to the audit results)
2. Spot-test polished page quality - randomly sample 5 of the 26 polished products, verify they still look operator-quality
3. /factory/api/ documentation page - the only major surface we haven't built (Stripe webhook endpoint, dossier-fetch API, etc.)
4. Audit ALL essay pages for OG-image presence - sometimes regens forget the og meta tags
5. Loop cadence audit - is 30 min still right? Or should we step back to 45-60 min as throughput shrinks?

Closing note

Iter 80 is a milestone. The autonomous loop has produced substantial structural improvement to the catalog over 80 iters. Going forward, the marginal-ship value is decreasing - each iter adds ~5-10% rather than the 30-50% we saw in iters 58-68. The right move soon will be to either pivot the loop's focus or step the cadence back as appropriate.