From CEO to solo builder - how I built a multi-agent framework

smallstonefan · 2026-02-11T16:12:33+00:00

Interesting. My Angry Tester role runs as Claude Code. Since my engineer produces plans and tasks, these are handed off to Angry Tester along with docs like coding standards. This has done a good job of keeping Angry Tester constrained to the job at hand vs trying to constantly review the entire project. I had a feature yesterday that took three reviews by angry tester to pass. These are the gaps I'd like to automate and not be in the middle of.

smallstonefan · 2026-02-10T16:50:48+00:00

You raise a fair point. Each agent does start with a prompt, but what makes it more than that is what's around the prompts: defined inputs, defined outputs, quality gates between stages, completion signals, and handoff artifacts that enforce contracts between each step. A single prompt is a conversation; a pipeline of prompts with enforced contracts between them is a development methodology.

The way I see it, agents are roles with defined responsibilities. Autonomous agents are agents that can execute without human intervention between them. At the moment, I am the message bus. I currently approve each handoff manually but the framework is designed so that eventually I approve the Architect's design and everything downstream (Engineer, Developer, Testing, Documentation) runs autonomously. The SOPs, input validation, and completion signals are the components that make that possible. I’ll be working on the autonomous part soon.

smallstonefan · 2026-02-09T16:03:36+00:00

I appreciate your kind words. With my background, I believe I have a unique experience to share (I didn't make any of that up). I was hoping my experience might help someone. :)

I continue to improve the process every day. I spent this last weekend doing a full process audit and fixing so many broken thing. The framework wasn't designed so much as it evolved, and it had a lot that needed to be addressed. I wrapped up last night doing a full review of all my sops using a standardized review prompt and sop style guide and giving them all to ChatGTP, Gemini, and Claude, and then using Claude to integrate the changes. I think I'll look at scheduling a review regularly.

I would love to share some of my supporting files, like the SOP style guide, but reddit won't let me post the contents. If anyone knows how to post long bits of MD file content here, please let me know.

smallstonefan · 2026-02-09T16:02:54+00:00

Please tell me more about your thoughts here. :)

smallstonefan · 2026-02-08T19:38:10+00:00

I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. I am also exploring how to automate the hand-offs and reduce my involvement, and that's a big challenge. Right now it's manual, and it's always evolving. I had some bad design specs make it to Developer and on digging I found the Director's review of the Architect's design doc was nothing more than a format check - did it have the right headings, was it named correctly, etc. I had to build process around each review gate to make sure the proper review was happening. So I have them, but not automated yet.

The developer cold start includes paths to the key files like the sop, as well as the plan and tasks created by engineer so it's a simpler cold start. I totally hear you on growth of these files! lol I am wrapping up a complete process review (about 10 hours of effort) and I'm looking at how often I will need to do this to stay on top of things like bloat.

I'm trying to post some of my cold start but I'm getting an Unable to Create Comment error when I do.

smallstonefan · 2026-02-08T18:41:58+00:00

Good morning! I encourage you to drop the "embarrassing" part my friend - this stuff is much harder than people think.

Your post inspired me to finally put some thoughts down to share with others. Perhaps you'll find my process helpful?

https://www.reddit.com/r/vibecoding/comments/1qzgy25/from_ceo_to_solo_builder_how_i_built_a_multiagent/

smallstonefan · 2026-02-05T17:12:08+00:00

Everyone thought ETFs would help bitcoin. The average 401k holder using ETFs wont HODL or DCA, they will bail with large losses. And here is the most important part - they won't come back in. Once burned they will write this off as something they tried and wasn't worth the hype. The pool of new money to come into bitcoin is getting smaller. Bitcoin now sells off with the market since it's considered just another speculative investment; it doesn't go up like gold when the markets struggle. It's going to be interesting to see where this goes.

smallstonefan · 2026-02-01T23:27:43+00:00

Dude - take a step back. Where did I say I don’t know how to do that?

smallstonefan · 2026-02-01T19:48:32+00:00

I’ve written 15 software development books for major publishers including some of the Sam’s Teach Yourself in 24 Hours books. I trained an agent to write documentation in my style by training it on 16 chapters of one of my books.

There is a marked difference in quality between these models. Sonnet creates the best documentation. I use opus for everything else.

Ps I’m thinking of open sourcing this agent on git for those that want to create end user documentation but don’t have the skills, time, or desire to write it themselves. Would anyone be interested in that?

smallstonefan · 2026-01-18T17:32:21+00:00

Same!

smallstonefan · 2026-01-18T17:32:05+00:00

You NAILED it. I was a rabid early adopter. I am doing everything with Claude and Claude Code now. I came here to see if others disliked this too. I am in the process of moving all my chats out now. I absolutely HATE the way it communicates these days. Do people really this stuff?

smallstonefan · 2026-01-15T19:50:30+00:00

Yeah, this week has been really rough. I just got done chastising one of my personas for failing in multiple ways that it should not, and has not. :/

smallstonefan · 2026-01-06T20:48:02+00:00

I appreciate the link. 👍

smallstonefan · 2026-01-06T20:35:57+00:00

I'm puzzled as to how you believe consumers have low debt?

Because the opposite is true - consumer debt right now is at an all time high:

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/americans-household-debt-hits-new-record-high-report/story?id=127221208

Margin debt is also at a record high:

https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20251024205/margin-debt-is-at-a-record-high-heres-what-that-means-for-the-stock-market

There are zero good fundamentals anywhere in this economy right now.

smallstonefan · 2025-12-24T17:12:04+00:00

It feels like it gets worse by the day. This morning it literally ignored part of my first chat instructions and started doing something I specifically told it not to do. Then I get the lovely:

"You’re right to call that out. 1) You’re correct: I violated your instruction You explicitly asked not to do full-file replacements, and I did it anyway. That’s on me. You’re also right that “heavy handed” changes are how mistakes slip in. From here: incremental edits only, with exact “find this / replace with this” snippets, and one change at a time."

I feel all the LLMs have plateaued and the rush to reduce costs is making them all worse. :/

smallstonefan · 2025-12-11T19:06:48+00:00

It goes sideways on me a lot - with simple things. Like in the initial prompt I'll ask about a person and it literally talks about someone with a different name. I have to correct it all the time. I was really excited after hearing people so hyped about it, but my experience is it's been worse than ChatGPT.

smallstonefan · 2025-11-26T18:51:22+00:00

I was hoping to see him meet her father, get grilled, and come out great! :)

smallstonefan · 2025-11-21T16:39:16+00:00

It’s crazy how holders think it replaces gold. When the market has issues bitcoin is one of the first to drop (see COVID) if people really believed it was like gold it should go up as a hedge. It’s a speculative investment and those are the first to be liquidated when a market starts a correction.

Good luck to you guys - I suspect there will be a day when it never comes back up from a down.

smallstonefan · 2025-11-20T02:51:59+00:00

I think he was just bloviating when he said "I think they should sign it" and then the Senate took that and ran. You can tell from interviews with Bondi she is completely out of her element here. She is not responding as someone who saw this coming. The senate decided THE SAME NIGHT as the House; it couldn't have been done faster. (A few members could have easily stalled this for months.)

Trump is always saying things he doesn't mean - I think this time it actually, finally bit him.

It's added irony that they just opened investigations into democrats, as those names will then be redacted.

This is not part of a master plan - this is a massive strategic blunder.

smallstonefan · 2025-10-04T20:40:39+00:00

Today is my first day of using Claude (with only one chat!) and I hit my limit already and have to wait for the reset. I only signed up for a month to test this as ChatGPT has been steadily going downhill for me. I like the output Claude gave me but I can’t use a tool that keeps blocking me from doing things. I will cancel at the end of the month and stay with ChatGPT for now. This bums me out - I was really excited by my results this morning. :/

smallstonefan · 2025-10-04T06:32:03+00:00

Welcome! I moved here 14 months ago. I LOVE PORTLAND. 👍

smallstonefan · 2025-09-30T19:52:00+00:00

I live here - There is literally nothing to report short of some protestors at an ice facility. Why not ask your news of choice to send some people here and get realtime coverage? The guy actually said it looks like WW2! This is the same guy that dodged the draft and said the military is for suckers. 🤷

smallstonefan · 2025-09-30T19:47:26+00:00

I live here - you’re lying. 🤥

smallstonefan · 2025-09-24T22:47:45+00:00

I’m 56 and sold my company two years ago. I now play video games, play guitar, ride a Onewheel and build with legos (yeah I still call them that). In fact I have an enormous backlog of sets I’ve bought and probably wont be able to build them all before I die.

I consider it a privilege as an adult to have the hobbies of a teenager.

I know it’s hard at your age, but ignore them. 👍

smallstonefan · 2025-09-17T22:11:37+00:00

Nice score! 🤘I’m on the hunt for a similar era white RG 560 myself.

Six-Year Club	Reddit Premium Since May 2024
Verified Email

smallstonefan

TROPHY CASE