Founder Mode

Use for Founder Mode start, status, continue, jumps, overrides, and every stage signoff — stage map, Stage N of 14 progress, plain tone, paste artifacts in chat, and choose-your-own-adventure after intake.

Use to start or safely resume a Founder Groundwork run and determine whether the proposed setup fits the US-only scope before Name review.

Use after Founder Mode intake to falsify or harden a startup idea before name/entity spend — kill criteria, competitor/status-quo map, pre-mortem, and PROCEED/PIVOT gates with cited evidence; never invent market size or fake validation.

Use after accepted idea stress-test to tear the offer down to cited hard constraints versus conventions, rebuild a minimal spine, and emit FP-### Passport claims without inventing physics or market stats.

Use as the living Founder Mode assumption register: tag FACT/ASSUMPTION/UNKNOWN, rank cost-if-wrong, define cheap falsification tests, emit A-### Passport claims, and refresh before spend or formation gates.

Use after first-principles and the assumption ledger to convert attested resource, regulatory, and distribution limits into a forced product wedge with explicit non-goals and C-### Passport claims.

Use once per thinking pack for a single better/cheaper/faster 10× rethink that keeps one hard insight, discards fantasy stacks, collapses to a shippable wedge, and emits X-### Passport claims.

Use after the 10× pass to invert and delete features, steps, and hires until only the wedge spine remains, protecting cited compliance must-keeps and emitting D-### Passport claims.

Use after simplify-pass to map physics, safety, supply, and ops reality with citations—or mark NOT_APPLICABLE for true software-only—emitting O-### Passport claims and blocking on CRITICAL gaps without a specialist plan.

Use at the end of the thinking pack to define one primary leading metric and a weekly observe→decide→change loop with minimal instrumentation, emitting L-### Passport claims before Name or heavy build.

Use at every Founder Mode gate to append an immutable bet—options, evidence, assumptions, expected outcome, revisit-by—emitting J-### Passport links without rewriting history.

Use after accepted intake to perform a dated, reproducible US name screen and produce evidence-backed GREEN/YELLOW/NO candidates without claiming legal clearance or availability.

Use after name selection to compare a bounded US entity path with current official state evidence, surface exceptions, and produce a review-ready formation plan without filing.

Use after an entity path is accepted to prepare an evidence-backed EIN and tax-routing worksheet, with official federal/state sources and CPA gates; never file or optimize taxes.

Use after the tax-routing worksheet to build a privacy-safe, institution-neutral business banking application packet and gap list without opening an account or collecting KYC secrets.

Use after name and banking prep to produce a dated domain, DNS/email, handle, and trademark-watch hygiene plan that distinguishes observations from availability or rights.

Use for two or more founders after brand hygiene to prepare an entity-aware equity/governance discussion ledger and counsel handoff; skip deterministically for solo founders.

Use for Founder Groundwork status, continue, overrides, safe resume, evidence expiry, and the Groundwork Passport view; enforces deterministic gates from the canonical manifest.

Use to create a private professional handoff packet or a separately scrubbed public template snapshot, with manifest validation, evidence index, gaps, and no invented completeness.