Field notes

The work, in public.

Operator field notes on building AI and agent systems in the margins of a real job. What ships, what it costs, and how to tell the signal from the guru noise.

A 6:40am home desk at dawn in amber line-light, a coffee mug beside a laptop terminal showing abstract code with no readable text, and a small stack of amber cost-line bars at different heights representing a monthly agent bill broken into separate line items instead of one number

Jul 19, 2026

How Much Does It Cost to Run a Voice-Flag Agent Per Month?

An honest build-in-public cost breakdown for one small voice-flag agent run in the margins of a day job. Not a single magic number, line items. The model access line, the parts that are free, the overflow that varies, and how to measure your own cost per task instead of trusting somebody else's average. From an operator who sells cars for a living and builds agents with no tech background.

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An amber signal trying to travel from a phone on a dark home desk at dawn along a circuit path, hitting four small broken gaps in the line where each one glows red before an amber patch closes it, showing the boring plumbing failures of a first voice agent getting fixed one at a time

Jul 18, 2026

What Breaks When You Build Your First Voice Agent, and How Do You Fix It?

What breaks first when you build a voice agent is almost never the AI. It is the boring plumbing around it, the microphone permission, the recording that saves as an empty file, the note that gets parsed into the wrong field, and the save that silently fails. Fix them in that order, catch each failure loudly, and read the work back before you trust it. Here is the exact list of things that broke on my first voice agent, in the order they broke, and the small fix for each one, from someone who sells cars for a living and built this with no tech background.

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An amber signal rising off a phone on a dark home desk at dawn and forming three small labeled capture fields that flow into a single saved-lead node, like a floor greeting turning into a stored record before the customer sits down

Jul 16, 2026

How Do You Build a Lead-Capture Agent for a Dealership Floor?

You build a lead-capture agent for a dealership floor by capturing three fields the second a customer walks up, name, one contact method, and the vehicle they came for, then writing that to one destination you already check. Skip the CRM form. Skip the perfect record. The smallest useful version is a spoken note that turns into a saved lead before the customer sits down. Here is how I built mine on the floor with no tech background, the fields, the bugs, and the fixes.

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One amber signal rail rising off a phone on a dark home desk and splitting into three glowing rails that each land on a separate destination node, like a switchboard delivering one message to the correct lane

Jul 14, 2026

How Do You Make Sure a Voice Agent Sends Work to the Correct Destination?

You make sure a voice agent sends work to the correct destination by giving every destination an explicit address, verifying that address before the note is spoken, and confirming the note landed after it is sent. Routing decides which lane a note belongs in. Destination correctness is the separate promise that the lane the note reaches is the lane you meant. Here is how I made mine reliable on a dealership floor with no tech background, the address book, the bugs, and the fixes.

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One amber signal node splitting along three glowing rails into three separate destination nodes on a dark desk, like a switchboard routing one message to the correct lane

Jul 13, 2026

How Do You Route a Voiced Note to the Right Person Automatically?

You route a voiced note by reading its intent, matching that intent to a destination, and dropping the flag there with a confirmation. This is the routing step of a voice-flag agent, the part that decides who gets the note. Here is how I built mine on a dealership floor with no tech background, the switchboard, the bugs, and the fixes.

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A phone on a dark rail glowing amber, a spoken note traveling as a beam of light toward a lit destination node

Jul 12, 2026

How Do You Capture Work Between Customers Without Typing Anything?

You capture work between customers by speaking it into a one-tap voice agent that transcribes the note, reads the intent, and flags it to the right place before the next customer walks in. No keyboard, no app to open. Here is the build log: the stack, the bugs, and the fixes. Twenty years on a floor, no tech background.

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A single amber signal node flaring on a dark rail with a small flag marker rising from it

Jul 11, 2026

What Is a Voice-Flag Agent, and Why Build It Before a Chatbot?

A voice-flag agent captures a spoken note and flags it to the right destination. It is the smallest useful agent an operator can ship, and a far better first build than a chatbot. Here is what it is, why it comes first, and how I built mine. Twenty years on a floor, no tech background.

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Jul 10, 2026

How to Build a Follow-Up Reminder Agent for a Sales Rep

A build log for a follow-up reminder agent: a sales rep speaks a promise between customers, and the agent captures it, pulls out the who and the when, schedules it, and pings the rep at the right time. The stack, the bugs, and the fixes. Twenty years on a floor, no tech background.

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Jul 8, 2026

How to Build a Voice-to-Task Agent for a Service Writer

A build log for a voice-to-task agent: a service writer speaks a note between cars, and it gets captured, transcribed, parsed, and routed to the right destination. The stack, the bugs, and the fixes. Twenty years on a floor, no tech background.

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A central amber hub wired by beams of light to the nodes around it

Jun 28, 2026

Why I Built the Routing Layer Before Any of the Agents (and Why You Should Too)

The boring plumbing matters more than the agent. An operator's case for building the MCP routing layer first, before any of the agents that get the demo time on AI Twitter.

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An operator's desk at night, a monitor glowing amber beside a cluster of small illuminated server nodes

Jun 28, 2026

What It Actually Costs to Run 22 Production AI Agents

The real monthly bill behind 22 AI agents running 6 businesses, broken down by line item: the $200 Claude Max plan, hosting, model calls, APIs, storage. Operator math, not vendor pricing.

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A dark office after hours, a desk phone ringed with soft amber light

Jun 28, 2026

Voice AI for After-Hours Sales Calls: How to Capture Leads When You Can't

An operator's playbook for using voice AI to catch the calls that come in after your floor closes. Twenty years on a dealership floor, what voice AI handles, what it doesn't, and how to wire it for under $50 a month.

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An extreme close-up of a dark terminal screen glowing warm amber

Jun 28, 2026

The Bash Script That Closes More Loops in My Business Than My LLMs Do

The most useful AI agent I built doesn't use AI. Two hundred lines of bash, no language model, more leverage per dollar than anything else in my stack. An operator's case for telemetry over intelligence.

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A laptop glowing warm amber on a kitchen table late at night

Jun 28, 2026

How to Start Building AI Agents If You Have a Day Job

A practical sequence for operators who want to build AI agents in evenings and lunch breaks without quitting the job that pays them. Twenty years on a dealership floor, no tech background, here is the starting line.

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A dealership showroom at dusk with a faint amber AI node glowing near a desk

Jun 28, 2026

How to Evaluate an AI Agent For Your Sales Floor (What It Automates, What It Doesn't)

An operator-floor breakdown of what AI agents genuinely handle on a sales-floor day, where they stop, and the questions to ask before you commit. Twenty years in retail, no vendor spin.

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