~/keystrawai / insights · ~/insights/

Field notes from the work.

What we ship, what it cost, what worked, what didn't. Specific shops, specific numbers, specific tradeoffs. The opposite of a buzzword blog: short, technical when it needs to be, and only published after a build has closed and the owner has signed off.

// empty-state

Nothing here yet.

The first field note lands when the first engagement closes. We'd rather publish nothing than publish anything generic, so this directory will stay quiet until there is something specific worth reading.

If you want a note when one is published, email hello@keystrawai.com. We add you to a small list and send only when something ships. No newsletter. No drip. No "best of 2026" recap.

subscribe-by-email → start the intake →

zsh ~/insights · 2026-05-02

$ ls -la ~/insights
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  2 ks  staff   64 may  2 09:08 .
drwxr-xr-x  9 ks  staff  288 may  2 09:08 ..

$ cat policy.md
# publish only when:
  - engagement is closed (cutover + burn-in)
  - owner has reviewed + signed off
  - real numbers, not estimates
  - we'd send it to a friend asking the same q

$

// backlog

What we expect to write about.

Topics already on the list. Topics we expect to write up first, once there is a closed engagement behind them. Order is intent, not commitment.

after engagement #1 The accounts-receivable baseline nobody expects: what was never actually sent, and what moved at 30, 60, and 90 days. revenue-recovery
after engagement #1 What Jobber and QuickBooks already did, before we built anything, and what we charged for instead. native-first
after engagement #2 After-hours intake at a trades shop: what the pilot week of texts actually booked. phone-desk
after engagement #2 The cheapest friday-digest build worth shipping, and what makes it usable on day one. friday-digest
when we’ve declined enough When NOT to add an AI phone agent, in three live examples. phone-desk
later Dispatch logic for a trades outfit: rules versus a model versus the dispatcher. schedule-keeper
a year after the first cutover A year of run costs: where the bills actually land for a shop with three automations live. economics

// editorial

Why the policy is "publish nothing until it ships."

AI commentary is cheap to generate and exhausting to read. The world doesn't need another "10 ways AI will change [industry]" post, especially from a practice that hasn't shipped at that industry yet.

Field notes here will be the opposite: a single shop, the automation we built, the number it moved (or didn't), what we'd do differently. If we don't have one of those to publish, we publish nothing. A quiet log is more credible than a loud blog.

When a note does appear, it will include:

the shop's name (with permission) or a clear anonymization
the automation shipped and the stack it runs on
the pilot + first-week numeric report, unedited
what we'd do differently if we shipped it again
a contact path to the owner if you want to ask them yourself

// next

While the directory is empty, the work is happening.

If you want to be the engagement we write up first, send the intake. The first three intakes get an unusual amount of attention.

start-intake → read the approach →