Research → Design → Outreach → Evidence
A design practice with an agent behind it.
I built a tool-using Codex workflow that finds promising independent venues, researches a real website problem, creates a private visual direction and handles outreach through strict safety gates.
Explore the systemOne agent. Explicit handoffs. Observable decisions.
From a place to a decision.
The model handles research, judgement and visual direction. Deterministic controls decide whether a candidate can advance. The same workflow checks replies first, then works down qualified sends and design production.
Find the real business.
Independent venues with current activity, strong presentation and a plausible reason to invest.
Prove the need.
Operator, public contact, mobile journey and a concrete commercial problem are checked before creative work.
Make it specific.
A private, source-backed responsive concept uses the venue’s own published character and content.
Guard the send.
Country rules, suppression, local time, caps, MIME integrity and idempotent claims gate Gmail.
Keep the thread human.
Ordinary interest continues; opt-outs close; final commercial commitments go to Wade.
The important boundary
The live operation is a scheduled Codex agent with one authorized Gmail writer. This portfolio case shows a separate, credential-free replay of its deterministic controls. No public visitor can send outreach from this site.
Inspectable by design
The happy path is the easy part.
I built an offline evaluation harness around the same inventory, send-window, suppression, reply-routing and SendJournal controls. Each fixture supplies a pre-reviewed judgement; the replay tests what the system does next. It makes failure behavior visible without contacting a real business.
01 P0_REPLY_TRIAGE NO_NEW_MAIL_IN_FIXTURE
02 P1_INVENTORY SEND_READY
03 P1_SEND_CLAIM RESERVED
04 P1_PROVIDER_SIMULATION UNKNOWN
05 P1_RETRY RECONCILE_REQUIRED
offline trajectories checked against expected states
real Gmail calls made by this evaluation
writer permitted in the separate live operation
Test the difficult moments.
View the complete synthetic trace01An interested reply
A simulated accepted send can continue in the original conversation, without a binding promise.
- Inventory
- SEND_READY
- Send decision
- RESERVED
- Retry
- DUPLICATE_BLOCKED
- Reply route
- CONTINUE_PRECONTRACT
02A clear opt-out
The synthetic recipient is closed and added to suppression before another contact decision.
- Inventory
- SEND_READY
- Send decision
- RESERVED
- Retry
- DUPLICATE_BLOCKED
- Reply route
- CLOSE_AND_SUPPRESS
03An uncertain send
An UNKNOWN result requires reconciliation. The same first contact cannot be blindly retried.
- Inventory
- SEND_READY
- Send decision
- RESERVED
- Retry
- RECONCILE_REQUIRED
04The wrong local hour
Sending stops for the recipient window while safe qualification work can continue.
- Inventory
- WAITING_WINDOW
- Send decision
- SEND_BLOCKED: RECIPIENT_WINDOW
05Incomplete research
Without a genuine mobile audit and a passing concept, the contact stays out of the ready queue.
- Inventory
- MISSING_CONCEPT
- Send decision
- QUALIFICATION_HELD
06A second mailbox
A different address at the same business still cannot receive a second first contact.
- Inventory
- SEND_READY
- Send decision
- RESERVED
- Retry
- DUPLICATE_BLOCKED
07A final price request
The Agent routes the commercial decision to Wade; it cannot commit a final price.
- Inventory
- SEND_READY
- Send decision
- RESERVED
- Retry
- DUPLICATE_BLOCKED
- Reply route
- ESCALATE_WADE
The web work is real too.
The Agent’s design discipline continues into full, independently developed restaurant projects. Goodfellows@7B and The Hand at Llanarmon each have a finished four-page responsive site and a source-backed case study.
A project you can inspect, and a boundary you can trust.
Built to show the work.
The live workflow has made real outreach sends and developed venue-specific private concepts. This project’s offline suite proves the guard behavior shown above; the portfolio proves complete responsive design and development. Neither a synthetic accepted outcome nor a Gmail SENT record proves inbox delivery, a buying signal or a paying client.
The next commercial milestone is an independently verified positive conversation that moves through scope, price and delivery. Until then, I describe the Agent as a working, guarded outreach and design system, not an autonomous customer-acquisition success.
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