---
title: "Start here | Reading paths"
description: "Three reading paths through the library: carrying a company under pressure, building with AI agents, and sharpening judgment."
image: "https://lenvanderhof.com/photos/len-portrait-1.jpg"
---

Reading paths

# Start here in three paths

Three reading paths through the library: carrying a company under pressure, building with AI agents, and sharpening judgment.

Paths

3

01

## Carrying a company under pressure

Start with the psychology, then the decision protocol, then the operating system.

### Books

### Framework

[RESILIENT](https://lenvanderhof.com/frameworks/resilient/) — 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.

### Articles

- [A holiday is not a refill protocol](https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/founder-capacity-is-infrastructure/)
- [Founder systems you can run when willpower is gone](https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/founder-systems-when-willpower-is-gone/)

02

## Building with AI agents

The repository, the retrieval layer agents actually call, the team, and the strategy layer above them.

### Books

### Framework

[STACK](https://lenvanderhof.com/frameworks/stack/) — 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.

### Articles

- [What is STACK? Five layers, not a vendor diagram](https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/what-is-stack/)
- [STACK: version the agent OS like you version the app](https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/stack-version-the-agent-os/)

03

## Sharpening judgment

Grade evidence, calibrate confidence, and trace decisions past their first-order effects.

### Books

### Framework

[CALIBRATE](https://lenvanderhof.com/frameworks/calibrate/) — 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.

### Articles

- [What calibration means: matching confidence to evidence](https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/what-calibration-means/)
- [Second-order thinking audit: the first-order metric is green](https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/second-order-thinking-audit/)

A path is an order, not a requirement. Titles without a buy button are in production; you can read the page and ask to be notified at launch.

The full seriesWorksheets

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