Trident Playbookby Trident Social
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Engineering

The Ship Loop

How a one-person studio ships software daily: the agent implements, proves it works in a real browser, deploys, and then proves it again in production.

The rule

"It compiles" is not done. "Tests pass" is not done. Done is the agent driving the actual product in a browser — clicking the flow, reading the network tab — and then re-verifying against the production URL after deploy.

When to run it

Every feature, every fix, every deploy. It's a loop, not an event.

The play

1. Scope the change and make the agent state its plan before touching code. 2. Implement on a branch. Structural edits re-render; behavior changes get exercised end-to-end. 3. Verify locally in a real browser session: the actual click path, console errors, API responses — not just unit tests. 4. Deploy, then verify the live URL immediately: status codes, auth boundaries, one full user flow. Expect edge-cache propagation lag; retry before diagnosing ghosts. 5. Log what shipped in the commit and in project memory, so the next session starts warm. 6. Anything irreversible — deletes, migrations, money — pauses for a human yes.

Where it breaks

Verification theater: screenshots that raced an animation, tests that mock the exact thing that's broken. And deploying five changes at once — when production misbehaves you want one suspect, not a lineup.

Get the next play first

One email when a new playbook ships. Zero noise — that would violate the playbook.

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