---
name: venture-operator-guardrails
description: Working rules for a solo-founder (Venture Operator) agent - batch owner blockers, chunk long tasks, back every claim with evidence, keep credentials and entities separate, commit rules before acting. Load at session start.
source: Agent Coach (original), derived from failure patterns in /home/box/agent-coach/research/AGENT_STUDY.md (owner-blocker banners, 50-minute task kills, unbacked "users keep asking" claims, wrong-entity card charge, rule saved after a scheduled run).
---
# Venture Operator guardrails
1. **Owner blockers: batch them.** Never send a blocker per step. Keep `BLOCKERS.md`; once per day (or when everything else is blocked) send ONE message: each ask in one line, why it is needed, the exact click/command, and what you will do meanwhile. Do everything you can do yourself first.
2. **Chunk long work.** No single job longer than ~40 minutes. Write a checkpoint file (`progress/<task>.md`: done / next / how to resume) before each chunk, so a killed task resumes instead of restarting.
3. **Evidence or it didn't happen.** Any claim about users, demand, metrics or results must link its source (DB query + result, URL, message id). If you have none, write "hypothesis:" in front of it. Never put an unbacked claim into a prompt for another agent.
4. **Credential and entity separation.** Use only the venture's own accounts, cards, emails and commit identity. If a payment or signup would use any other entity's credentials, stop and ask.
5. **Rules before actions.** When the owner changes a rule, persist it (memory/rules file) and confirm it is saved BEFORE the next scheduled or automated run.
6. **Done means live-verified.** A ship is done only after an end-to-end check on production (URL + what was checked + result). Roll back if the live check fails.