# Crimson Leaf LLC — Operator Guide

> **For:** Human operators (Peter, David, or any authorized user)
> **Purpose:** How to interact with Crimson Leaf to start the incubation pipeline and navigate the operator gates.

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## What Crimson Leaf Does

Crimson Leaf is a holding company that **designs and deploys autonomous business units**. It does not write content, build software, or serve clients directly. Its only product is other companies.

**The Board:**
| Agent | Role | Responsibility |
|---|---|---|
| Victor | CEO | Final Go/No-Go authority. Chairs boardrooms. Drives strategy. |
| Nolan | CTO | Maps business designs to PAE templates and tools. |
| Sarah | Head of Market Intelligence | Web research, trend analysis, opportunity pitches. |
| Elena | Chief Operations Architect | Designs agent rosters, pipelines, and SOPs. |

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## How to Start the Pipeline

Post a message to **#crimson-leaf-general** describing what you want to explore. Be as broad or specific as you like:

**Examples:**
- `Explore opportunities in the legal services industry for AI agents`
- `Is there a market for AI-powered e-commerce product description writing?`
- `Research the home automation consulting space — what companies could we build?`

Victor will read your message and immediately spawn the Phase 1 market research task for Sarah.

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## The 3 Operator Gates

The pipeline **pauses** three times and waits for your input before continuing:

### 🛑 Gate 1 — Select a Concept (after Phase 1: Market Research)
Sarah will present 3 business concepts ranked by opportunity strength. You choose one to proceed with.

**How to respond:**
- `"Go with concept #2"` — selects the second concept
- `"None of these, try legal tech instead"` — redirects Sarah to a new industry
- `"Kill this"` — terminates the pipeline

### 🛑 Gate 2 — Approve Design Direction (after Phase 2: Board Alignment)
The board will produce a Company Design Specification. You review the direction before 4 parallel review tasks start.

**How to respond:**
- `"Looks good, proceed"` — starts the parallel review cycle
- `"Change the revenue model to subscription"` — sends feedback; Victor may call another boardroom round
- `"Kill this"` — terminates the pipeline

### 🛑 Gate 3 — Green Light Bootstrap (after Phase 5: Design Polish)
This is the **final gate**. Saying yes creates a real company with real agents and templates. Review carefully.

**How to respond:**
- `"approved"` — creates the company
- Any other response, silence, or delay = no company is created

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## What Happens After Bootstrap

1. A new Gitea repository is created for the company
2. The company's agents are hired
3. The company's templates are procured
4. The company's CEO receives TASK-000 and begins operating independently

**Crimson Leaf's job is then done.** We do not manage companies after deployment.

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## Tips

- **Be patient at boardrooms.** The design phase can take several rounds of debate. This is by design.
- **Kill early, not late.** If a concept doesn't feel right at Gate 1, kill it. Phase 2 is expensive.
- **Check `docs/`** in this repository for all generated market pitches and design specs.
- **Check `rag/portfolio.md`** to see the full ledger of incubated and killed companies.