The Lab
Making-of, with receipts
The journal, the method and the ledger. Each post says how a bit was made, what it cost, and which gate it is waiting at. If a method is worth selling, it is worth showing.
- 08 Nov 2026
The Field Forge The Science Atlas is in alpha: 15,664 entries and an evidence ledger
What the free landscape is for, and why the cards sit beside it rather than in front of it. - 07 Nov 2026
The Kitchen Forge Why the Game Plan recipes are still marked DRAFT
A release gate is not a disclaimer. What a cook-test has to prove before a recipe is sold. - 03 Nov 2026
The Terminal Forge Standing up a download vault on Cloud Run
Grants, links, per-file budgets, ClamAV, and why there is a Counter in front of it. - 18 May 2026
The Street Forge A dozen cabinets in a month: what vibe-coding an arcade taught me
The purest builder-unleashed artifact in the studio, and the typecheck debt it left behind.
The method
Pipeline, gate, release
Every forge runs the same three stages, whatever the medium. A pipeline drafts at machine speed and keeps a ledger of what it spent. A gate — always a person — tastes, reads, plays or checks the sources. A release carries the reference code, the status and the receipts onto the bit itself.
- 01 Pipeline Drafts, renders, executes. Logs its cost to the cent. Never publishes.
- 02 Gate A human decides spend, taste and publish. DRAFT until the gate closes.
- 03 Release Reference code, status, price, licence and provenance on the bit.
The builder's house rules
Empathy is shown, not claimed
- 01 Say what is generated Every image, recipe and prompt carries its provenance. "AI-generated serving illustration" stays on the card.
- 02 Never ship untested as tested A recipe is DRAFT until it has been cooked and timed; a pack is DRAFT until a human has read every prompt.
- 03 Name the sources, pay for the inputs Evidence anchors on every claim, licensed photos with attribution, paid tools paid for.
- 04 Keep a human at every gate Spend, taste and publish are decided by a person. Nothing auto-publishes.
- 05 Teach the craft, leave the door open The Lab shows how, the free entries are real, and the Fave Roll points at the people worth following.
The ledger
What things cost to make
Measured figures only — what the pipeline logged, not what it might have cost. More rows land as posts are written; a bit without a measured cost is not listed here.
| Bit | Forge | Measured | Cap | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| neon-terminal ep02 — Midnight Compile | Tech | $3.08 | $4.00 | 28:45, five movements, all QC gates passed |
| Habitable Worlds — Hybrid Pack | Science | $3.07 | — | 48 renders curated to 7 by hand |
| Role Pack 01 — FP&A | Tech | printed on the pack | — | 13/13 executed, T-lint clean |