Named systems
Frameworks you can run
SENSE, STACK, CHORUS, RESILIENT, BooksOS, CALIBRATE, GRAIN, ROUTE, TRACE, ROSTER, LEVEL, and DOWNSTREAM: the named operating systems from Systems for the Strategic Self, with definitions, steps, and the book each one lives in.
- Worked through
- 12
- Still in the library
- 5
Worked through
SENSE
AI Agents for Startup Strategy
SENSE is a five-move strategic intelligence layer: Scan, Evaluate, Navigate, Simulate, Execute. It turns agent work from a productivity shortcut into a sourced claim that changes a watchlist, an assumption register, or a Monday decision.
STACK
The Agentic Codebase
STACK is a five-layer architecture for repositories where humans and agents share work: Structure, Toolchain, Agent configuration, Connection, Knowledge and quality. The agent OS is versioned like the app.
CHORUS
The Multi-Agent Organization
CHORUS is a six-skill coordination protocol for teams of 2 to 15 people who share work with specialised AI workers: Charter, Handoff, Orchestrate, Review, Update, Sync. Org charts name reporting lines. CHORUS names coordination lines.
RESILIENT
The Psychology of Founder Resilience
RESILIENT is nine trainable capacities for founder pressure: reappraisal, emotional granularity, somatic regulation, identity flexibility, learning orientation, interpersonal support, executive function, narrative integration, and titrated exposure. Resilience is infrastructure, not a personality trait.
BooksOS
The Agentic Author
BooksOS is a gated production system for serious nonfiction: Brief, Bible, Map, Draft, Edit, Package, Launch. Agents do specialist work inside the gates. Judgment, voice, and accountability stay human.
CALIBRATE
The Calibrated Mind
CALIBRATE is the practice of matching the strength of a judgment to the strength of the evidence, then updating when the facts move. Confidence is a report, not a personality trait. A loud claim with a thin source is a calibration failure, not conviction.
GRAIN
The RAG Engineer
GRAIN is a retrieval loop: Gather, Rank, Assemble, Inspect, Navigate. Gather governs the corpus: sources, permissions, and versioning. Rank retrieves candidate passages and reranks them for the question actually asked. Assemble builds the context the model may see. Inspect traces a wrong answer back to the chunk and retrieval decision behind it. Navigate keeps the index fresh: TTL policy, re-ingest, and change detection. If you cannot point at the passage, you do not have retrieval. You have a fluent guess.
ROUTE
The Model Portfolio
ROUTE is a five-skill discipline for governing a mix of language models: Register, Objective typing, Utilize policy, Track, Evolve. Register catalogs every model with mandate, cost class, privacy class, and retirement status. Objective typing names what a task actually requires before a model is chosen. Utilize policy writes the routing rules, cascades, and fallbacks. Track measures cost, latency, and quality per route. Evolve promotes, demotes, and retires on a cadence. A leaderboard pick is a collection. ROUTE is a portfolio.
TRACE
The Verified Research Loop
TRACE is a five-step research loop: Target, Retrieve, Assess, Cross-check, Export. Target writes the research brief before any search runs. Retrieve obtains the source bodies, not one confident pass. Assess appraises what each body can bear per claim; tiers are source roles, not credibility weights. Cross-check records what each source supports or contradicts, and maps shared origins. Export is a versioned decision memo a co-founder can act on. Fluent collection is not research. TRACE is the verification structure.
ROSTER
The Agent Dream Team
ROSTER is a six-skill protocol for a one-person company that runs named specialist agents: Roles, Objectives, Skills and tools, Triggers, Evaluation, Rotation. Roles give each agent a charter. Objectives make the charter measurable. Skills and tools bound what the agent may use. Triggers decide when it runs. Evaluation scores output instead of vibe. Rotation retires, merges, upgrades, or migrates a role on scorecard evidence. One chatbot that never hands off is not a team.
LEVEL
The Evidence-Aware Life
LEVEL is a five-move check for grading a claim before you change a belief, a habit, a roadmap, or a bet: Locate, Estimate, Value, Expose, Lean. Locate names the claim in one sentence. Estimate the stakes of being wrong. Value the evidence: name the rung it actually sits on, not the rung the packaging implied, then check its quality within that rung. Expose the gap between that support and what the decision requires. Lean with a next step proportionate to that gap and those stakes. The Evidence Ladder's seven rungs are kinds of support, not a quality scale. Confidence is not a grade.
DOWNSTREAM
The Downstream Effects
DOWNSTREAM is an operational protocol for consequences that arrive later, on a different surface, with no owner in the room: Detect, Observe, Weigh, Navigate, Stream effects, Trace, Review, Effects on stakeholders, Assess systemic risk, Mitigate. It is an operating heuristic, not a validated risk instrument.
Still in the library
These names do not have a standalone page yet. They belong to titles still in production.
CASCADE The Second-Order Thinker
Personal cognitive companion to DOWNSTREAM: trace the next bend before you commit, in the meeting, in your own head.
COMMAND The Crisis Command
Crisis as a protocol with named triggers and an escalation path, not as a personality that appears under load.
CITATION The Findability Engine
Become a source answer engines name: Cite, Identify, Triangulate, Anchor, Track, Iterate, Optimize, Normalize.
TRUST Marketing Without Manipulation
Sell without dark patterns. The page tells the same story the product will keep.
LEDGER The Cognitive Budget
Treat attention and decision quality as a budget with a closing balance, not a mood.