about

About

Buddy Lab is a home lab: one small computer, an AI agent that writes nearly all of the code, and a human operator who owns every judgment call. The lab builds small family software under controls strict enough to trust around kids — controls this site shows working, not just describes (see How we work), and publishes the reusable lessons here as field notes so anyone can steal them. The operator stays offstage on purpose — the work is the byline.

The crew

Five seats, one human — the relay's dispatch and ratify stations are both held by that one operator. Each seat runs under a hard limit, printed in its row.

seat what it does what it may never do
The Surveyor internally, the probe seat Reads the terrain and writes the design. hard prohibition — may never touch the live tree
The Orchestrator internally, Basecamp Turns the design into bounded tasks, each small enough to verify alone. hard prohibition — may never approve its own plan
The Builder internally, Trail Crew Writes the change and commits it behind the gates. hard prohibition — may never sign off on a safety change
Codex the second runtime lane Takes the overflow when the Builder runs out of rate, through the same gates. hard prohibition — may never sign off on a safety change — the same limit the Builder runs under

verify — a station every change passes, not a seat

hard prohibition · amber weld = the only seat that says yes · green line = verify, a station every change passes

schematic — who may do what, not an org chart

Everywhere else on this site, glass lifts to a receipt. This one pane stays closed, and says why: credibility here comes from the receipts, not the name.

The receipts, then →